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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap.. Copyright No. 

Shelf. 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 






AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


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AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


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CbUOren in tbe Ibome 


BY 

J. M. P. OTTS, D.D. 

AUTHOR OF “THE FIFTH GOSPEL THE LAND WHERE 
JESUS LIVED,” ETC., ETC. 


* 


SEP 24 1 894 




WAStt'T 


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FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
New York Chicago Toronto 





Copyright, 1894. 

by 

Fleming H. Revell Company. 


BABY-LAND. 


How many miles to Baby-Land? 
Any one can tell ; 

Up one flight, 

To your right — 

Please to ring the bell. 

What can you see in Baby-Land ? 
Little folks in white, 

Downy heads, 

Cradle-beds, 

Faces pure and bright. 

What do they do in Baby-Land ! 
Dream and wake and play, 
Laugh and crow, 

Shout and grow ; 

Jolly times have they. 

What do they say in Baby-Land? 
Why, the oddest things ; 
Might as well 
Try to tell 
What a birdie sings. 

5 


Who is the queen of Baby- Land? 
Mother, kind and sweet ; 

And her love, 

Born above, 

Guides the little feet. 

George Cooper. 


THE CHILD’S EVENING PRAYER. 

Now I lay me down to sleep, 

I pray thee, Lord, my soul to keep ; 

If I should die before I wake, 

I pray thee, Lord, my soul to take. 


THE CHILD’S MORNING PRAYER. 

Now I wake and rise from sleep, 

I pray thee, Lord, my life to keep ; 

In all I do from morn to night, 

I pray thee, Lord, to lead me right. 


6 


CONTENTS. 

PAGE 


Preface 9 

I. 

Wanted— A Child’s Morning Prayer .... 13 

II. 

Morning Prayers for Children 30 

III. 

A Babe in the House 42 

IV. 

' Children in the Home 69 

V. 

The Children’s Bed-time Hour 90 

VI. 

The Child’s Evening Prayer 104 

VII. 

Poems about the Child’s Evening Prayer 116 

7 


8 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

VIII. 

Nursery Prayers and Cradle Songs 130 

IX. 

Good-Morning ! Good-Morning to All ! . 148 

X. 

Our Children in Heaven 161 


PREFACE. 


This is not a child’s book, but a book 
about children and their prayers, written for 
the benefit of the little ones, and for the pleas- 
ure of all who love them. It is especially in- 
tended for the help of mothers, in their holy 
ministry with their children in the home. 

In these modern days much is said about 
woman’s ministry, especially about her sphere 
and work in the church; and, no doubt, she 
has there a high place to fill, and an impor- 
tant work to do for Christ and for human- 
ity. But, most manifestly, God has ordained 
motherhood as woman’s highest earthly glory ; 
and hence, ordinarily, her work in life must 
be intimately connected with her crowning 
position as wife and mother. The home is 
the center of her life ; and from it issue those 
9 


IO 


PREFACE 


streams of holy influence through which she 
blesses all mankind. 

The world of the affections is her world ; 

Not that of man’s ambition. In that stillness 
Which most becomes a woman, calm and holy, 
She sitteth by the fireside of the heart, 

Feeding its flame. 

Whatever else may be her work on earth, 
most assuredly her holy ministry with her 
children comes first, and is highest of all. In 
that she stands between them and their Sav- 
iour ; and her home ministry is always prior to, 
and more potential than, that of the holy man 
as preacher in the pulpit, or of the devout 
woman as teacher of the infant-class. She is 
always the first to tell the story of Jesus and 
his Cross to the children of each new-born gen- 
eration as they come into the world through 
the golden portal of the home. And as she 
tells that sweet story in her ministry of love 
in the nursery, the little ones understand and 
appreciate it, long before they could compre- 
hend the same gospel as taught in the class- 
room or preached from the pulpit. Most of 
those now praying on earth, or praising in 
heaven, were first drawn to the Saviour by 


PREFACE 


1 1 

the voice of mother, telling the sweet story 
of redeeming love, as only woman’s voice can 
tell it, to the tender hearts of the little ones 
who kneel in prayer “ At Mother’s Knee.” 

That is a touching scene in Luke’s Gospel 
where it is recorded: “And it came to pass, 
that, as he was praying in a certain place, 
when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto 
him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also 
taught his disciples.” It was then that the 
Master gave his disciples the Lord’s Prayer, 
which the church will continue to pray through 
all ages until he comes again. And it comes 
to pass that as the mother is praying in the 
home, when she ceases the children say unto 
her, “ Mother, teach us to pray, as Jesus also 
taught his children.” Then she gives them 
the mother’s prayer; and they will continue 
to pray it through all the coming years, until 
they go home to heaven to be with their Sav- 
iour and their mother forever, in that land of 
glory where prayer is transformed into cease- 
less and endless praise. 

There can be no scene on earth more 
interesting, none on which angels can look 
down with greater delight, than that of a 
mother praying with her child, and teaching 


12 


PREFACE 


it to pray for itself. She weeps with it in all 
its sorrows, and rejoices with it in all its glad- 
nesses; and the religious life and worship of 
mother and child blend together, and flow on 
sweetly in the same channel of prayer and 
praise. 

The sweetest sound heard in our earthly home, 
The brightest ray that gleams from heaven’s dome, 
The loveliest flower that from earth’s bosom grows, 
The purest flame that, quivering, comes and goes — 
Are found alone where kneels a mother mild, 

With heart uplifted, praying for her child. 

The stream of tears will never cease, to flow 
As long as men shall live on earth below ; 

And many angels have been sent from God 
To count the tear-drops wept along life’s road ; 
But of all tears that flow, the least defiled 
Are those a mother weeps beside her child. 

I know that mortals may the legend deem 
A thought of foolishness, a childish dream ; 

But they can never rob me of the thought — 

That precious thought with heavenly sweetness 
fraught — 

That blessed angels have all ages smiled 
To see a mother praying with her child. 

The Author. 

Magnolia Hall, Greensboro, Ala. 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE. 


i. 

WANTED— A CHILD’S MORNING PRAYER. 

There is a very wide-felt want for a child’s 
morning prayer, to mate with the child’s even- 
ing prayer that is now in universal use : 

Now I lay me down to sleep, 

I pray thee, Lord, my soul to keep ; 

If I should die before I wake, 

I pray thee, Lord, my soul to take. 

Many mothers, and sometimes the little 
ones themselves, have felt the need of such 
a prayer. There are many morning prayers 
for children in use in different families, but 
none that so correspond with the prayer just 
cited as to command the same general accept- 
ance of the parents and children, and thus 
come into universal use. This want was, a 
13 


H 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


few years ago, very tenderly and deeply im- 
pressed upon the mind of the writer of these 
pages, by a pathetic incident that took place 
in connection with his ministry in Wilming- 
ton, Del. 

There was in the infant-class of our Sab- 
bath-school a bright and beautiful little girl, 
between five and six years of age, whose 
mother had died two years before, in Savan- 
nah, Ga., where her father still resided, being 
engaged in business there for most of the year. 
He was a cultivated Christian gentleman, and 
loved his little daughter, his only child, almost 
to idolatry. In the year 1875 his business 
required him to go to Paris and to spend sev- 
eral months there. He could not take with 
him on that journey his darling little daughter, 
who was as precious to him as the apple of 
his eye, and it almost broke his heart to leave 
her for so long a time. He brought her to 
Wilmington, and left her in charge of a pious 
and kind-hearted lady, a relative of his, who, 
being a member of our church, placed her in 
the infant-class of our Sabbath-school. 

The little girl was as beautiful as a spring 
flower; very precocious in mind, exceedingly 


A CHILD’S MORNING PRAYER 15 

/ 

modest and winsome in manners, amiable in 
disposition, and intelligent and thoughtful far 
beyond her years. The lonely situation of 
the little motherless stranger elicited for her 
the heartfelt sympathy of all who knew her 
history ; and her bright and gentle manners 
soon made her a general favorite in the school 
and throughout the entire congregation. 

This motherless little girl was very devout, 
and would never close her eyes in sleep, not 
even for her afternoon nap, without repeating 
the little prayer which her mother had taught 
her when she was so young that she could 
hardly articulate its simple words. It was 
only by association with this prayer that she 
could remember her mother at all. She al- 
ways spoke of it as “ the little prayer my 
mother taught me to pray at her knee ” ; and 
she always spoke of her mother as “ my 
mother who gave me my sweet little prayer.” 

One Saturday afternoon this little girl, with 
whom I had become well acquainted in the 
Sabbath-school and in her temporary home, 
asked permission of the lady who had her in 
charge to visit me in my study. She did not 
tell why she desired to make the visit, nor 


1 6 AT MOTHER’S KNEE 

did she intimate that she had any special pur- 
pose in view. On being brought to my study, 
she walked softly to my side as I was sitting 
at my desk, writing ; and, almost before I was 
aware of her presence, without any salutation 
whatever, said, with a suddenness that almost 
startled me : “ Please, sir, I have come to ask 
you to give me a nice little prayer to say of 
mornings, just like the one my mother taught 
me to pray every night at her knee before 
going to sleep ; only I want it to pray for 
things for the day.” 

This sudden request was made in such 
childlike simplicity, and with so much of ear- 
nestness, that it went to my heart; and al- 
though I was at the moment very busy with 
my Saturday afternoon preparations for the 
Sabbath services, I laid aside everything, and 
made search in all my books and papers for 
a morning prayer for little children, such as 
this child wanted. I repeated to her all that 
I could find, and all that I could recall to 
memory ; but no one of them seemed to be 
exactly the thing she desired. I then asked 
the child to return to my study on the next 


A CHILD’S MORNING PRAYER I 7 


Tuesday morning, telling her that I hoped 
that I would, by that time, be able to find for 
her just such a prayer as she wanted. 

On the Monday morning following I went 
to Philadelphia, to attend the Ministerial As- 
sociation of which I was a member ; and there 
I mentioned the matter to several of the 
brethren, and asked them for all the morning 
prayers for children which they could recall 
and repeat; and after the meeting, accom- 
panied by one of the brethren, I made a dili- 
gent search in several religious book-stores, 
for children’s morning prayers. In this way 
I gathered a great number; perhaps almost 
all of the morning prayers for little ones in 
verse and rhyme that were then in print. On 
Tuesday morning, punctual to the appoint- 
ment, the little motherless girl returned to my 
study, eager to find the morning prayer her 
young heart was hungering for. I read my 
collection over to her very slowly, one after 
another. No one of them seemed to be 
what she desired. She would say as I read 
them to her, ‘‘That one is too long;” and 
again, “That one is too hard.” At last we 


1 8 AT MOTHER’S KNEE 

selected the following as coming nearest to 
her wish : 

Now I wake to see the light, 

Tis God who kept me through the night ; 
To him I lift my voice and pray 
That he will keep me through the day ; 
And if I die before ’tis done, 

O Lord, accept me through thy Son. 

I took the little child upon my knee and 
caused her to repeat the words after me until 
she learned them by heart and was able to 
repeat them fluently. But she did not seem 
to be satisfied ; nor did she seem to be quite 
ready to go. It was manifest that there was 
still a shadow of trouble on her mind. At 
length she said : “ That is a very nice little 
prayer for mornings, but it is not sweet, and 
easy to say, like ‘ Now I lay me down to 
sleep.’ ” After some more talk about prayers, 
and her mother who had taught her to pray 
at her knee, she reluctantly bade me good-by, 
and started to go out ; but on reaching the 
door she paused, and, suddenly turning back, 
said to me : “ Please, sir, won’t you make me 
a little prayer to say of mornings, just like 


A CHILD’S MORNING PRAYER 


19 


the one I say of nights, only make it pray for 
things for the day ? ” 

I was quite startled by the earnestness of 
the manner in which the unexpected request 
was made of me by so small a child. I could 
not do less than promise her that I would 
again try to find such a morning prayer as 
she desired. She replied : “ Please, sir, you 
make it, and I will come for it next Saturday ; 
but don’t make it too long, nor too hard, and 
let it run along smooth and easy, like ‘ Now 
I lay me down to sleep.’ ” 

Three days after this sweet interview word 
was sent to me by the good lady who had 
her in charge that the little orphan girl was 
very dangerously ill. I went at once to see 
her. It was Friday evening. As soon as I 
entered the room where she was lying pros- 
trate under a raging fever — her face as red 
as a burning coal of fire, and her eyes spark- 
ling with an unearthly brilliancy — she said : 
“ Oh, I am so glad to see you ! And I hope 
that you have brought me my sweet little 
prayer for the morning. I was coming for it 
to-morrow, but I am so sick that I am afraid 
that I will not be able to go.” 


20 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


I would have given a great deal, I don’t 
know how much, to have had just then a 
prayer such as that dear child wanted ; but I 
was compelled to tell her, in sorrow, that I 
had not yet found or made it for her. She 
said, “ Oh, sir, please make it for me to-night, 
and bring it to me in the morning.” On the 
impulse of the moment I replied, without con- 
sidering how much I was promising: “Yes, 
I will make it for you to-night; go to sleep 
now, and when you wake up in the morning 
you shall have the prayer you so much want.” 
She replied: “Oh, thank you, sir; I’m so 
glad ! When I wake up in the morning and 
hear my birdie singing, and see the pretty sun 
shining, I will have my sweet morning prayer 
to say.” And then, folding her little hands 
across her breast, she said: “Now I want to 
say the sweet little night prayer which my 
mother taught me to say at her knee; and 
then I will go to sleep ; but first, you pray 
for me.” Then I knelt in prayer by her bed- 
side, and when I closed my prayer for her, 
she repeated, in tones so tender and trustful, 
and in a manner so impressive and touching, 
that all in the room were moved to tears : 


A CHILD'S MORNING PRAYER 


21 


“ Now I lay me down to sleep, 

I pray thee, Lord, my soul to keep ; 

If I should die before I wake, 

I pray thee, Lord, my soul to take ; 

And this I ask for Jesus’ sake.” 

At that moment I was called out of the 
room by one of the physicians in attendance 
on the sick child. He told me that he had 
been in consultation with the family physician 
during the time that I was in the bed-cham- 
ber, and that they had come to the conclusion 
that the child was suddenly seized with a ma- 
lignant form of scarlet fever, and that, in their 
opinion, her case was very critical. I went 
home very much alarmed about the condition 
of the little motherless child, and, also, as 
to the consequences of my visit to myself, 
and to my own wife and children. I did not 
enter the room where they were, but took all 
precautions, as directed by the physicians, to 
prevent infection ; which, under the blessing 
of God, were successful. 

I could not sleep until a late hour that night. 
I was in my study praying for the sick child 
and for her absent father, and trying to com- 


22 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


pose a morning prayer, hoping to have one 
that would please her when she awoke on the 
following day. This is the prayer that I com- 
posed that night : 

Now I wake and rise from sleep, 

I pray thee, Lord, my life to keep ; 

In all I do from morn to night, 

I pray thee, Lord, to lead me right. 

I took this prayer in my hand and went 
around to the house where the sick child was, 
the next morning before breakfast. The good 
lady met me at the door and said, with stream- 
ing eyes : “ She is gone to be with her Sav- 
iour and her mother ! She never spoke after 
saying her little prayer and bidding you good- 
night.” I could not then, as I cannot now, 
express the emotions of grief and sorrow that 
rushed into my heart. I thought of the 
bereaved father, so far away, whose heart 
would be crushed by the sad message that 
would be dispatched to him that day. Then 
I thought of the mother in heaven — how she 
was again clasping her child in the bosom of 
her love. I was overwhelmed with sorrow 
that the child had died without finding the 


A CHILD'S MORNING PRAYER 2 3 

morning prayer she wanted so much, but 
which she needed now no more. Of this 
child it can be truly said : 

Prayer was, indeed, her vital breath ; 

It was her native air ; 

Her watchword at the gate of death ; 

She entered heaven with prayer. 

I was told that immediately on saying her 
prayer she fell asleep; and that, at first, her 
sleep seemed to be so gentle and peaceful 
that all were encouraged to hope that her 
fever would take a turn for the better; but in 
a few hours her sleep became a stupor, and 
the stupor terminated in death. The dear 
child next awoke in the glorious morning of 
the day to which there is never a night ; and 
instead of seeing the pretty sun shining, and 
hearing her sweet bird singing in her room, 
she awoke to see the bright rays of the Sun 
of Righteousness, and to hear the seraphic 
songs of the angels around the blazing throne 
in heaven ; and instead of receiving a morning 
prayer from the hands of a stranger, to find 
herself in the arms of her own mother, whom 
she only remembered by the prayer learned 


24 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


at her knee, which was on her lips when she 
went to meet her in glory. While I was try- 
ing to compose for her the little morning 
prayer she so much desired, her beautiful and 
lovely spirit took its flight to that better world 
where prayer becomes praise, and the sighs 
of earth pass into the songs of heaven, and 
are sighs no more, but joyful notes in the song 
of salvation. 

But there was another sad and mournful 
duty to be performed for this child. As the 
physician’s certificate stated that she had died 
of malignant scarlet fever, the city authorities 
forbade the body to be carried through the 
streets in the day, and ordered that the burial 
should take place in the silent hours of the 
night. It was the saddest funeral that I ever 
conducted. In the stillness of the midnight 
hour the little coffin was borne through the 
deserted streets, and the lifeless form, of which 
the living were so much afraid, was deposited 
in its little grave, in a beautiful cemetery on 
the banks of the picturesque Brandywine, 
where it will sleep in peace till the trumpet 
of the resurrection shall awaken it to life again 
and reunite it to its joyful spirit. 


A CHILD’S MORNING PRAYER 25 

The pathetic circumstances of the death 
and burial of this little child have left on my 
mind and heart a profound impression which 
time does not wear away ; and though the 
bright and joyous child, whose short life on 
earth was like a morning sunbeam, that shone 
for a moment and then passed into shade, has 
been now nearly a score of years in heaven 
with her Saviour and her mother, I have not 
ceased my quest for a morning prayer for 
children to mate with the evening prayer — 
those four lines written by an unknown hand, 
which are, in simplicity of language and sub- 
limity of thought, the most perfect and pre- 
cious gem in our language. 

Soon after the event just narrated I pub- 
lished in the New York Evening Post a short 
article under the title, “ Wanted — A Child’s 
Morning Prayer.” That article was copied 
into many papers, both religious and secular, 
in our own country, and in all countries where 
the English language is spoken ; and in re- 
sponse to it I have received a very large num- 
ber of morning prayers for children, coming 
from all parts of the world, many of which 
are original compositions, while many others 


26 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


are the morning prayers that have been in 
use in different Christian families for years. 
In this way I have come into possession, I 
suppose, of a larger number of morning 
prayers for children than is in the possession 
of any other one person now living. So im- 
mense was the number sent to the New York 
Evening Post , that the editors were com- 
pelled to insert the following notice in their 
columns: “The correspondence called forth 
by J. M. P. O.’s letter is so voluminous that, 
should we print a tithe of it, we would have 
no room in these columns for anything else.” 
This shows how widespread is the felt need 
of such a prayer ; and it also shows that the 
story with which the call for such a prayer 
was associated touched a chord of human 
sympathy that vibrated the world over. 

I will, in the following pages, give a large 
number of children’s morning prayers, se- 
lected from those now in my possession, 
without attempting the impossible task of 
distinguishing in every case the new from 
the old. In many cases prayers were sent 
to me directly through the mail without 


A CHILD’S MORNING PRAYER 


2 7 


names or addresses, or any other indications 
as to where they came from, except the 
postmarks on the envelopes. In some cases 
the prayers were accompanied by long let- 
ters, some running up into scores and even 
hundreds of pages, giving incidents connected 
with the prayers recommended, and anec- 
dotes about the prayers of children in gen- 
eral. In this way, as the years have gone 
by, I have found myself overwhelmed with 
a superabundance of matter, from which, no 
doubt, sufficient material could be gathered 
to fill a large octavo ; but it would be a Her- 
culean task to arrange all these communica- 
tions into a form suitable for publication, 
and to make of them a volume that would 
be really useful or acceptable to the reading 
public. While there is great variety in cer- 
tain specific points, there is such a general 
sameness in these letters and essays, that, if 
published, they would make a work so mo- 
notonous in matter and tone that it would 
weary the reader, and dull his interest in the 
points of real merit and value. We will 
therefore content ourselves by giving a selec- 


28 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


tion of morning prayers for children, and let 
each reader choose the one that seems most 
suitable for use in his or her own family. 

But it is desirable, if possible, that one 
should be found on which all families could 
unite, so that it would come into universal 
use, and stand as a mate to the child’s match- 
less evening prayer. The prayer that shall 
fill this place must be as much like the prayer 
with which it is to be associated as the morn- 
ing twilight is like the twilight of the even- 
ing; and yet it must be as different from it 
as the activity of the day is different from 
the repose of the night. The little mother- 
less girl, with whom this search began, said : 
“ Make me a little prayer to say of mornings ; 
smooth and easy, just like the one I say of 
nights ; only make it pray for things for the 
day.” It must therefore be short, and in 
simple words that infant lips can pronounce, 
and infant minds comprehend ; and it must 
be in rhyme, so that the little ones can easily 
catch and remember it. It could not be 
chosen by the majority vote of a convention 
of mothers, were it possible to call such a 
convention together for the purpose of select- 


A CHILD'S MORNING PRAYER 


29 


ing a morning prayer for universal use. It 
must possess in itself its own recommen- 
dation : a certain indefinable but irresistible 
something that will commend it, above all 
others, to mothers and children alike. 


MORNING PRAYERS FOR CHILDREN. 


Although the number of morning prayers 
for children sent to us is very large, running 
up into the hundreds, yet most of them are 
very similar in thought and language, the 
effort having apparently been, in most cases, to 
turn the child’s evening prayer into a morn- 
ing petition. To publish them all would be 
altogether too tedious ; and we will therefore 
present only a selection, not a tithe of those 
in our possession, choosing such as seem to 
us most worthy of notice, and which will 
best serve as samples of the rest. 

Concerning the one with which we head 
the list, a lady writes : “ Among my earliest 
recollections is the remembrance of learning 
this prayer at my sainted mother’s knee, and 
I regard it as just what is wanted: 

“Now I wake and see the light, 

’Tis God who kept me through the night ; 

30 


MORNING PRAYERS FOR CHILDREN 31 

To him I lift my voice and pray 
That he would keep me through the day ; 
And if I die before ’tis done, 

That he would save me through his Son.” 

From the very large number who have sent 
us this prayer as the one which was taught 
them in infancy, or as that which they are 
now teaching their own children, it is quite 
evident that it is the child’s morning prayer 
that is now most generally used. It will be 
recognized as the one which the little mother- 
less girl selected for herself, but concerning 
which she said : “ That is a nice prayer, but 
it is not sweet and easy to say, like f Now I 
lay me down to sleep.’ ” 

Any one who will carefully compare the 
two prayers will see that the child’s criticism 
was just. Neither the thoughts nor the 
words run together as smoothly and sweetly 
as those of the evening prayer for which we 
seek a mate. It is labored and heavy in the 
thought, and noticeably artificial in arrange- 
ment. It impresses one as something that 
has been accepted as a makeshift until some- 
thing better can be found ; and this becomes 
more clearly evident in the fact that it exists 


32 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


in a great variety of versions. We have it 
in more than twenty different forms, all of 
which are so many attempts to improve it ; 
thus showing that it does not fully meet the 
demand. 

We give a few samples of its different 
readings. 

Now I wake and see the light, 

Tis God who kept me all the night ; 

To him I lift my voice and pray 
That he will keep me all the day. 

Now I wake from sleep to see the light, 

I thank the Lord who kept me all the night ; 
And before I go to work or play, 

I pray thee, Lord, to keep me all the day. 

Lord, thou hast kept me all the night ; 

Again I see the morning light ; 

Accept my thanks, and hear me pray, 

And be my keeper through the day. 

I thank thee, Lord, for having kept 
My soul and body while I slept ; 

I pray thee, Lord, that through this day, 

In all I do, or think, or say, 

I may be kept from harm and sin, 

And made both good and pure within. 


MORNING PRAYERS FOR CHILDREN 33 


In presenting the following selections of 
morning prayers we give the names, or ini- 
tials, of their authors, so far as we know 
them ; and sometimes the remarks and com- 
ments which came with them. In many 
cases we do not know whether or not they 
are the original productions of those by whom 
they were furnished. 

And now I wake and see the day, 

I pray thee, Lord, to guard my way ; 

In all I do before the night, 

I pray thee, Lord, to guide me right. 

O. 


Now, Lord, I wake to see the light; 
Help me this day to do just right ; 

And if the night I may not see, 

Oh, take me, Lord, to rest with thee. 
New York. Yl. G. E. 


O thou who didst me guard in sleep, 

Me save through all the day, 

From all the ills that make men weep, 

Or turn them from thy way. 

Scotland. Scotia. 


34 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


Thou who hast kept me through the night, 
Oh, keep me through the daily light ; 

And if this day my last should be, 

Oh, may I end it, Lord, in thee. 

Scituate, Mass. G. Z. 


All through the day, 

I humbly pray, 

Lord, be my guard and guide ; 

My sins forgive, 

And let me live, 

Dear Jesus, near thy side. 

New York. Auntie. 


Now I see the morning light ; 

I thank thee, Lord, for care at night ; 
Preserve me through the hours of day, 
Nor let my footsteps go astray. 


J C. G. 


Lord, thou hast kept me through the night ; 
I praise thee for the morning light ; 

Keep me from harm and sin to-day, 

And guide me on my heavenly way. 


New York. 


C. Z. P. 


MORNING PRAYERS FOR CHILDREN 35 


I thank thee, Lord, for morning light, 

That thou hast kept me through the night ; 
Oh, wilt thou, while I work or play, 

Still keep my soul, dear Lord, to-day. 

Mary. 


Thank thee for my sleep and waking ; 
Keep me from all sin to-day ; 

If I die before the evening, 

Take me, Lord, to heaven, I pray. 

New York. Mrs. E. P. M. 


Now I wake to see this day, 

Near me keep, O Lord, I pray; 

Help me to be good and kind, 

That I may be a child of thine. 
Massachusetts. H. F. C. 


“ I have always thought,” says the person 
who contributes the following prayer, “ that 
it is desirable that a child’s prayer should 
contain a petition for others besides itself, 
thus : 


36 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


“ I thank thee, Lord, for morning light, 
And for thy care by day and night ; 
Bless me, and every little one, 

And by us all thy will be done.” 
Providence, R. I. S. A. J. 

. When asleep on my bed, 

Angels watched around my head ; 

Jesus heard my evening prayer: 

Love and thanks, Lord, for thy care. 
Now the morning light is here, 

Help me love thee, Saviour dear, 

And guide me right through all the day, 
While I study, while I play. 

£. B. F 


Now I’ve risen from my bed, 

I pray thee, Lord, for daily bread ; 
My sins forgive, my soul renew, 

And guide me, Lord, in all I do ; 

And while to me thy love extends, 
Lord, add thy blessings to my friends. 
For Jesus’ sake. Amen. 

New Jersey. 

Now I see another day, 

I pray thee, Lord, to guide my way ; 


MORNING PRAYERS FOR CHILDREN 37 


And while I live, from every ill 
I pray thee, Lord, to keep me still. 
Waterford, Conn. IV. Hunt. 

Again I wake from death-like sleep, 

I pray thee, Lord, my soul to keep ; 

If I should die before the eve, 

O Lamb of God, my soul receive. 

Dr. W. S. Bowen. 

The night is past ; the Lord has kept 
My soul in safety while I slept ; 

I thank him for his tender care, 

And raise to him my morning prayer ; 

Oh, wash my soul, forgive my sin, 

And make and keep me pure within ; 

And when at last I come to die, 

Take me, through Christ, to dwell on high. 
Toronto. 

O God, I thank thee that the night 
In peace and rest hath passed away, 

And that I see this fairer light, 

My Father’s smile, which makes it day. 

Be thou my guide, and let me live 
As under thine all-seeing eye ; 

Supply my wants, my sins forgive, 

And make me happy when I die. 

Vermont. VL Lady. 


38 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


Lord, thou hast kept me all the night ; 
Again I see the morning light ; 

Accept my thanks, and hear me pray, 

And be my keeper through the day. 

Rev. O. Russell. 

Jesus, bless us now, we pray, 

Safely keep us through this day ; 

Kind and gentle may we be, 

Pleasing not ourselves, but thee ; 

Thine shall all the glory be. Amen. 
Philadelphia. 

Great God, attend my morning prayer, 
Make me the object of thy care ; 

From youthful follies guard my way, 

And be my guide throughout the day. 

If I should sin, do thou forgive, 

And let thy grace within me live ; 

If I should die, Lord, take me home, 
Saved through the merits of thy Son. 
Alleghany Theological Seminary. Rev. Dr. Elliott. 


And now again I wake and see the light, 

I thank thee, Lord, who kept me through the night ; 
I pray thee, Lord, to make me pure within, 

And guard and keep my life from ways of sin ; 


MORNING PRAYERS FOR CHILDREN 39 


And should I die to-day while I’m awake, 

I pray thee, gracious Lord, my soul to take. 
Alabama. M. S. 


Gladly now I ope my eyes, 

And from my little bed arise ; 

I thank thee, Lord, I’ve sweetly slept, 

And through the night been safely kept ; 
From thoughts and actions wrong, this day, 
Oh, keep, dear Lord, thy child, I pray. 

And as I older grow, 

Teach me thy will to know. Amen. 

Surry County, Va. B. IV. J. 

Saviour, thou hast kept me through the night, 
And I thank thee for the morning light ; 
Safely keep me through the day, 

That I may not from thee stray. 

May all I think, or say, or do, 

Be gentle, good, and holy, too. 

Cleanse my heart and fill it with love, 

That I may dwell with thee above. 

Thy little one this prayer would make, 

And beg thee hear it for Jesus’ sake. Amen. 
Texas. A/! C. H. 

Now I rise again from sleep, 

I pray thee, Lord, this day to keep 


40 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


My thoughts and actions free from sin, 

And help me seek thy grace to win. 

A.B. 

As a matter of curiosity I insert the follow- 
ing, which came to me through the New York 
Evening Post . “ Brevity,” says the sender, 

*•' to my mind, is the soul of devotion, as well 
as of wit. The best morning or evening 
prayer I ever heard of was that used for 
many years by an excellent New England 
clergyman, who simply said, ‘ Thank you !’ ” 
Why didn’t he adopt the more modern 
style, and be briefer still, simply saying, 
“Thanks”? 

We will conclude this chapter with the 
following appropriate lines sent us from 
South Cambridge, N. Y., by an aged mother 
in Israel, who recommends all Christian 
mothers to teach them to their children in 
connection with whatever morning and even- 
ing prayers they may choose for use in their 
families. She says that she taught them 
to her own children when they were quite 
young, and adds, in testimony to their happy 
influence : “ I have the great comfort of 
knowing that no one of my children has ever 

i 


MORNING PRAYERS FOR CHILDREN 4 1 


forgotten to pray. They are all now grown 
up, and are in Christ, and love to pray ; and 
I do not think that any one of them, from 
childhood up, has ever passed a single day 
without prayer.” 

NEVER, MY CHILD, FORGET TO PRAY. 

Never, my child, forget to pray, 

Whatever the business of the day ; 

If happy dreams have blest thy sleep, 

If startling fears have made thee weep, 

With holy thoughts begin the day, 

And ne’er, my child, forget to pray. 

Pray him by whom the birds are fed, 

To give to thee thy daily bread ; 

If wealth her bounty should bestow, 

Praise him from whom all blessings flow ; 

If he who gave should take away, 

Still, ne’er, my child, forget to pray. 

The time will come when thou wilt miss 
Thy father’s care and thy mother’s kiss ; 

And then, my child, perchance thou’lt see 
Some who in prayer ne’er bent the knee ; 
From such examples turn away, 

And ne’er, my child, forget to pray. 


III. 


A BABE IN THE HOUSE. 

The case of the little motherless girl who 
could remember her mother only by the 
prayer which she had learned at her knee is 
a fit introduction to some reflections concern- 
ing the mother’s holy ministry in the home 
with her children. That ministry begins 
with the birth of the first babe. Whatever 
may be the fate of the rest of Tupper’s writ- 
ings, there is one line that will live as long as 
there are babes in our earthly homes, not- 
withstanding that it is in part a plagiarism : 
“ A babe in the house is a well-spring of 
pleasure.” 

A babe in the house, no matter how far 
from beautiful in itself, is yet “ a thing of 
beauty” and " a joy forever.” The soft 
warm bundle cuddled in the arms of love ; 
the wide-opened little eyes that sparkle like 
jewels ; the sweet warm mouth giving such 
42 


A BABE IN THE HOUSE 


43 


pure kisses ; the baby fingers with their 
waxen touches ; the tiny feet with their rose- 
bud toes — all these are sources of never- 
ending delight to the baby-lover. Never is 
prima-donna or star actor greeted with such 
heartfelt applause as is gladly accorded to 
the baby’s sweet little tricks, and, when he 
begins to talk, to his funny little speeches. 

The first tooth is an era; the first word a 
revelation ; the first step a marvel ; and the 
baby’s doings are always wonderful. His 
sayings are quoted and repeated to all comers, 
as if they were the wittiest words of genius, 
or the wisest utterances of philosophy. 

“ Infancy,” says Coleridge, “ presents body 
and spirit in unity : the body is all anima- 
tion.” Beginning with this as a text, Emer- 
son preaches the following beautiful little 
sermon. “ All day,” says he, “ between his 
three or four sleeps, the baby coos like a 
pigeon-house, sputters and spurs, and puts 
on faces of importance ; and when he fasts, 
the little Pharisee never fails to sound his 
trumpet before him. By lamp-light, he de- 
lights in shadows on the wall ; and by day- 
light, in yellow and scarlet. Carry him out- 


44 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


of- doors, and he is overpowered by the light, 
and by the extent of natural objects, and is 
silent. Then presently begins his use of his 
fingers, and he studies power, the lesson of 
his race. First it appears in no great harm ; 
in architectural tastes. Out of blocks, thread- 
spools, cards, and checkers he will build his 
pyramids with the gravity of Pythagoras. 
With the acoustic apparatus of whistle and 
rattle he explores the laws of sound. But 
chiefly, like his senior countryman, the young 
American studies new and speedier modes 
of transit and transportation. Mistrusting 
the cunning of his own small legs, he wishes 
to ride on the neck and shoulders of all flesh. 
The small enchanter nothing can withstand 
— no seniority of age, or gravity of charac- 
ter. Uncles, aunts, grandsires, and gran- 
dames fall an easy prey ; he conforms to no- 
body, all conform to him. On the strongest 
shoulders he rides, and pulls the hair of 
laureled heads.” 

The life of a baby as it develops from day 
to day is, to those who love children, more 
entertaining than the most interesting book 
that was ever written. Every day is a new 


A BABE IN THE HOUSE 


45 


chapter, and in every chapter there are new 
surprises and delights for the reader. The 
child itself is the picture that illustrates every 
page ; but there is such an unending vari- 
ety in motion, attitude, and facial expression, 
that the picture on every page is a new one, 
though perpetually the same. The house 
without a babe in it may be neat and quiet, 
but life in it is apt to be monotonously dull. 

Children in the home are no doubt, at 
times, a great bother. They bring in litter, 
and keep things in disorder, and it is impos- 
sible to keep up with them. But they more 
than repay for all this by adding to our 
pleasure, and enlarging our power to love. 
On my rounds of parish visitation, I can 
generally tell when I enter a house where no 
babe is: everything is in its proper place, 
and there is a hush and stillness that suggest 
a muffle on the bell, or crape on the door. 

No baby in the house, I know — 

’Tis far too nice and clean ; 

No tops by careless fingers thrown 
Upon the floor are seen ; 

No finger-marks upon the panes; 

No scratches on the chairs; 


46 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


No wooden men set up in rows, 

Or marshaled off in pairs ; 

No little stockings to be darned, 

All ragged at the toes ; 

No pile of mending to be done, 

Made up of baby-clothes ; 

N o little troubles to be soothed ; 

No little hands to hold; 

No grimy fingers to be washed; 

No stories to be told ; 

No tender kisses to be given ; 

No nicknames, “ Love ” and “ Mouse ” ; 

No merry frolics after tea, 

No baby in the house. 

A new home has been opened, and a young 
wife is its mistress. Everything is new and 
strange, but bright and beautiful. Friends 
and kindred come and go, and the halls of 
the new home ring with music and joyous 
laughter ; but its happiness is incomplete. A 
guest must arrive from another world to per- 
fect and crown its felicity. At length the 
new guest arrives, and its coming is at first 
welcomed with thoughts solemn and myste- 
rious. New emotions, fearful and yet joyful, 
are awakened in the heart of the mother; 


A BABE IN THE HOUSE 


47 


and father and mother talk together and 
draw closer to each other in a new love, with 
which their first affection is now crowned, 
and which imposes upon them a new burden 
of sweet responsibilities. About this new 
visitor they talk together in the words of 
Helen Angell Godwin : 

A lovely little lady 

Has come to be our guest ; 

She found a chamber furnished 
For her in every breast. 

She cannot speak our language, 

She cannot walk our ways ; 

And with neither purse nor promise 
Our constant care repays. 

Among the groves of dreamland 
She wanders night and day ; 

Save when the calls of hunger 
Or pain she must obey. 

She cares not for the silver 
And gold in all the banks ; 

She drinks at life’s full fountain 
Without a word of thanks. 


48 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


Is there some good work awaiting 
These helpless little hands ? 

Or will these small feet wander 
Afar from God’s commands ? 

We cannot shape her future 
Or save her life from care ; 

So we give her to the Giver, 
Content to leave her there. 

Beyond this world of trial, 

Through gates of mortal pain, 

A land of utter darkness 
And silence yet remains. 

And there’s the Golden City, 
Within whose jasper walls 

And pearly gates no sunbeam 
Or moonbeam ever falls. 

For the Lamb of God shall light it 
With the glory in his face, 

And peace and love eternal 
Shall crown a ransomed race. 

No sin or pain shall enter 
That City undefiled. 

God give us grace to reach it, 

And take with us our child. 


A BABE IN THE HOUSE 


49 


The baby grows and begins to notice 
things, and to laugh and coo. With its 
growth, the father’s interest in it deepens, 
and the mother’s joy rises higher. The 
“ well-spring of pleasure ” is now overflow- 
ing, and its streams of delight run out in 
many directions. In that home “ baby talk ” 
begins ; talks with the baby, and talks about 
the baby. Thus they talk to each other: 

The Father. 

Funny thing a baby is, 

Curious little creature ; 

Funny is its little phiz, 

Comic every feature. 

The Mother. 

Helpless thing a baby is, 

Tiny hands uplifting 

O’er the troubled tide of life 
Into which ’tis drifting. 

The Father. 

Mystery a baby is — 

Memories of heaven 

Still must hover in the soul 
Such a short time given. 


50 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


The Mother. 

Solemn thing a baby is, 

Since it must inherit 
All the loss and gain of life, 

All the sin and merit. 

The Father to the Child. 

Funny, helpless, mystic, sad — 

Let me tell you, Freddy, 

Half the good and sweet of life 
Is the getting ready. 

The Mother to the Child. 

Yours the sunshine, take it all 
While you are weak and tiny ; 

By and by the days that come 
May not be so shiny. 

The baby in the working-man’s home, in 
the arms of his wife, who cares for it while 
doing the housework, is a joy beyond all 
price. Just over the way live a rich man 
and his wife, who have not been blessed with 
such a gift from heaven. The poor man’s 
wife, happy with her babe in her humble 
home, sympathizes most truly with the rich 


A BABE IN THE HOUSE 5 I 

man’s wife in the loneliness in her palatial 
residence. 

Oh, I pity my neighbor over the way, 

Who has nothing to do but yawn all day : 

No little hands to tumble her hair; 

No little “nuisance” to vex her with care; 

No little “torment” to worry and tease; 
Nothing to do but consult her own ease. 

Poor rich neighbor! I’m sorry for you — 

Sorry because you have “ nothing to do ” ; 
Sorry because, as the days go by, 

You are restless and weary, you know not why ; 
And once in a while I can see the trace 
Of many a tear on your fair, proud face. 

You see I’m only a laborer’s wife, 

Doing my part in the treadmill of life ; 

Joe, my husband, is off for all day, 

Fighting the giants of want away ; 

Baby and I are busy, too, 

But we’ve plenty of time to be sorry for you. 

Baby’s a nuisance, a plague, and a joy ; 

But then, you see, he’s my own sweet boy! 

I’ve no time for a groan or a sigh — 

No time to be idle as days go by ; 


52 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


My arms are full as the day is long — 

Full as my heart with its happy song. 

Poor rich neighbor over the way, 

Watching my baby and me at play, 

What of your wealth if your heart is bare? 

Tis to love and be loved that makes life so fair. 
So, neighbor mine ! I can tell you true ; 

Indeed I’d rather be I than you! 

One hardly knows how to take the lines 
that follow. They are not the words of a 
babeless wife. They are too full of spirit 
and fun to come from a heart in which there 
is a longing want that is never to be satisfied. 
If taken seriously, they can only be the words 
of some shriveled old maid, who has long 
lost all hope of wifedom and motherhood. 
If taken humorously, as certainly they are 
intended to be, they express the mind of the 
young maiden visitor, who playfully reverses 
the picture of her young married friend’s 
happiness. 

Do you think, if I’d a baby, 

That I’d let him pull my hair ? 

Do you think I’d put on collars 
Just for him to soil and tear? 


A BABE IN THE HOUSE 


53 


Do you think I’d call it pretty 
When he bites his little toe ? 

Yet I’ve known some silly mothers, 
With their babies, do just so. 

Do you think I’d set him crying 
Just to see his cunning frown? 

Do you think I’d set him walking 
Just to see him tumble down? 

Would I call my baby pretty 

When he’d neither teeth nor hair ? 

Yet I’ve known some silly mothers, 
With their babies, think they are. 


Would I buy him drums and rattles 
Just to hear him make a crash ? 
Would I watch him most delighted 
Break my mirror all to smash? 
Would I smother him in flannels 
Just because his voice was low? 
Dose him up with belladonna? 

Silly mothers treat them so. 

Would I think his brow Byronic 
Just because it was so bare? 

And his head Napoleonic 

In its shape — though minus hair? 


54 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


Could I trace the marks of genius 
In his eyebrows arched and low? 
Yet I’ve known some silly mothers, 
With their babies, think just so. 


Would I think my baby destined 
To become a man of men, 

And to govern and control them 
By the might of sword and pen? 
I dare say these noisy babies 
Play the very deuce — I know. 
And I’ve seen the wisest women, 
With their babies, think just so. 


The father drinks too, and drinks deeply, 
of the “ well-spring of pleasure ” which the 
baby’s presence opens in the house. He 
loves his home more than ever before. He 
is henceforth bound to it by a. fourfold love: 
by the love of his wife in herself, and by the 
love .of the wife in the mother ; by his love 
for his babe in itself, and by the love of the 
babe in the mother. We would know this, if 
we would but hear his proud and boastful 
talk among his companions and business 
friends. His pride and joy come out in his 


A BABE IN THE HOUSE 


55 


letters to his unmarried brothers and college- 

mates. His thoughts run in the same chan- 
nel with these lines by E. Eugene Caldwell : 

Haven’t you seen our baby, our darling little pet? 

Oh! she is the best little darling you ever saw 
yet. 

Without baby I would scarcely know what to do ; 

She is so bright and happy, and so cunning too. 

Joe, you’re a crusty old bachelor; you’re in this 
world all alone, 

And know nothing of the joy of having a baby at 
home, 

Who each night watches and wishes that “ papa 
would turn 

Early home and tiss me and mamma, and p’ay 
wid me some.” 

She meets me at the gate and almost smothers me 
with kisses ; 

With her arms round my neck she tells how she 
set the dishes, 

And how she and mamma have made all the 
goodies just for me, 

And “ they’se so nice and pretty ’ou must turn and 


56 AT MOTHER’S KNEE 

And when supper is. done she brings my slippers 
and gown, 

Climbs up in my lap, with tiny fingers strokes my 
beard down, 

Teases so sweetly for “papa, one nice ’ittle stowy 
tell me.” 

I tell you, Joe, it makes a man happy as happy 
can be. 


Then why will you go on leading such a miserable 
life, 

All alone in the world, without any home, without 
a dear wife ; 

When you might have both, and a blessed baby, 
too. 

Joe, don’t tell me you can’t be happy, I’ve given 
you the cue. 


But we come back to the mother with her 
child. The following lines were written by 
a mother in Georgia, who is too modest to 
allow her name to appear in print ; but I am 
sure they will be read with pleasure in every 
house where there is a babe full of life and 
love, of frolic and fun. 


A BABE IN THE HOUSE 


5 7 


Busy little fingers, 

Everywhere they go ; 

Busy little fingers, 

The sweetest that I know! 
Now into my work-box, 

All the buttons finding, 
Tangling up the knitting, 
Every spool unwinding. 
Now into the basket 

Where the keys are hidden, 
So mischievous-looking, 
Knowing it forbidden. 

Then in mother’s tresses 
Now her neck infolding, 
With such sweet caresses 
Keeping off a scolding. 
Darling little fingers, 

Never, never still — 

Make them, Heavenly Father, 
One day do thy will. 


After the busy little fingers come the pat- 
tering little feet; and here are some lines 
about them that must have come direct from 
the heart of the writer, because they go 
straight to the heart of the reader. They 
awaken most pleasant memories in the hearts 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


58 

of all in homes where there are, or have 
been, little baby feet learning to walk. 

Little feet so glad and gay, 

Making music all the day ; 

Tripping merrily along, 

Filling all my heart with song. 

Well I love your music sweet. 

Patter, patter, little feet ! 

Sometimes anxious, I would know 
Just what way these feet will go. 

Praying oft that all be fair, 

No thorns nor roughness anywhere; 

That flowers may spring their steps to greet. 
Patter, patter, little feet ! 

But then I think that some have trod 
Through thorns and briers up to God ; 
Though weak in faith, still I would dare 
To offer up the earnest prayer 
That Christ would choose whate’er is meet. 
Patter, patter, little feet ! 

I press them, in my hands to-night, 

And kiss them with a new delight, 

Believing that where’er they go 
My tender Lord will lead them so 


A BABE IN THE HOUSE 


59 


They’ll walk at last the golden street. 

Patter, patter, little feet ! 

But the baby grows ; and as it grows and 
begins to run around, the mother must watch, 
guide, and guard its life, in every particular : 

Mother, watch the little feet 
Climbing o’er the garden wall, 

Bounding through the busy street, 

Ranging cellar, shed, and hall. 

Never count the moments lost, 

Never mind the time they cost, 

Little feet will go astray ; 

Guide them, mother, while you may. 

Mother, watch the little hand 
Picking berries by the way, 

Making houses in the sand, 

Tossing on the fragrant hay. 

Never dare the question ask, 

“ Why to me this weary task ? ” 

These same little hands may prove 
Messengers of light and love. 

Mother, watch the little tongue 
Prattling eloquent and wild, 

What is said and what is sung 
By the happy, joyous child. 


6o 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


Catch the word while yet unspoken, 

Stop the vow before ’tis broken ! 

This same tongue may yet proclaim 
Blessings in a Saviour’s name. 

Mother, watch the little heart 
Beating soft and warm for you, 
Wholesome lessons now impart, 

Keep, oh, keep that young heart true. 
Extricating every weed, 

Sowing good and precious seed, 

Harvest rich you then may see 
Ripening for eternity. 

But as the boy grows older he will become 
rougher, and may even come to be so rude 
as to be almost unbearable. In such a case 
let not the mother be discouraged ; but, re- 
membering that a boy will be a boy, let her 
keep his mind pure and his heart true ; and 
then, when he grows up, he will put aside 
his boyish ways, and develop into a manly 
man. 

Up in the morning and out of bed, 

He takes a leap on his frowsy head, 

And, seeing him act like a crazy clown, 

We know that the day will be upside-down. 


A BABE IN THE HOUSE 


6 


He gives the kitten a shower-bath 
And works her up to a state of wrath ; 

He ties a kettle to Rover’s tail 
And drops his cap in the milking-pail. 

He drives the hen from her nice warm nest ; 
The turkeys and geese have no chance to rest ; 
And oh, how they waddle, and how they run! 
As if they knew it was just for fun. 

He teases his sister and pulls her ears, 

And pulls her hair till he brings the tears, 

And is always so rough with her dolls and toys, 
That she says she had rather not play with boys. 

Sometimes he carries his fun so far 
That he’s quite as rude as the street-boys are ; 
And, called to account for his ways so rough, 
Thinks “ I didn’t mean to! ” excuse enough. 

He’s such a clown that he doesn’t know 
How deep in mischief a boy may go ; 

And yet so sorry when wrong is done 
We can’t help thinking ’twas just for fun. 

The babe in our own house opens our 
hearts of sympathy and love for the babes in 
other houses. Here are some tender and 


62 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


touching lines, an earnest prayer for another’s 
babe, which were found in a pair of little 
socks sent from Philadelphia in a “ missionary 
box,” to the family of one of our noble- 
hearted and self-sacrificing home-mission- 
aries ; the socks being a present to the little 
baby-boy of the family, then just four years 
old. 

O little feet that out from these 
Shall step up life’s steep way, 

The Lord uphold thy going forth, 

And “ strength give as thy day.” 

Lead this young soul up steadily 
The strait and narrow road ; 

Then shall his earthly lot be peace, 

His heavenly portion God. 

And when the journey ends at length, 
Before the great white throne 

He shall the Saviour’s plaudit hear, 

“ O child beloved, well done ! ” 

I think of the mother of that little boy, the 
wife of the home missionary in the Far West. 
How lonely her lot, how numerous her cares! 
Her husband, never more than half paid for 


A BABE IN THE HOUSE 


63 


his toilsome labors; more than half his time 
away from home ; and unable to hire a maid 
as company for her, or to assist her in her 
household cares. Her lot is more worthy 
of our sympathy than that of the foreign 
missionary’s wife. In foreign lands the mis- 
sionaries frequently live in clusters, and so 
are company for each other. The home 
missionary has a lonely station in a wide 
field, far removed from the presence and 
sympathy of his co-laborers. The days with 
his wife are days of loneliness and care. 
But Jesus is with her, comforting her with 
his holy presence, and enabling her, even in 
her dreariest hours, to say : 

I do not think that I could bear 
My daily weight of woman’s care, 

If it were not for this — 

That Jesus seemeth always near, 

Unseen, but whispering in my ear 
Some tender words of love or cheer, 

To fill my heart with bliss! 

There are so many trivial cares 
That no one knows and no one shares, 

Too small for me to tell ; 


6 4 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


Things e’en my husband cannot see, 

Nor his dear love uplift from me — 

Each hour’s unnamed perplexity, 

That mothers know so well : 

The failure of some household scheme, 

The ending of some pleasant dream, 

Deep hidden in my breast ; 

The weariness of childhood’s noise, 

The yearning for that subtle poise 
That turneth duty into joys, 

And giveth inner rest. 

These secret things, however small, 

Are known to Jesus, each and all, 

And this thought brings me peace ; 

I do not need to say one word ; 

He knows what thought my heart hath stirred, 
And, by divine caress, my Lord 
Makes all its throbbing cease. 

And then, upon his loving breast 
My weary head is laid to rest 
In speechless ecstasy! 

Until it seemeth all in vain 
That care, fatigue, or mortal pain, 

Should hope to drive me forth again 
From such felicity. 


A BABE IN THE HOUSE 


65 


What did the missionary mother do when 
she received the socks for her little boy, and 
found in them the prayer of another for her 
child? She clasped her boy to her bosom, 
loving him more now that she knew that 
another, unknown, loved and prayed for him 
too; and, drawing the warm socks on his 
rosy-red feet, she said : 

Little feet that dance and patter 
Through the house with silent glee, 

Little tender voice that prattles 
Baby nothings dear to me. 

Starry eyes of deepest violet, 

Little curly chestnut head, 

Rose-leaf hands and pearly white teeth, 

Ripe lips laughing rosy red. 

Whither are ye bound, O white feet? 

Shall tears dim those laughing eyes? 

Shall that tender voice be broken ? 

Shall those rosy lips breathe sighs? 

Shall those hands grow rough and horny 
In the daily toil for bread? 

Shall those little feet grow weary 
In the path they’ll have to tread? 


. 66 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


Not thy mother’s love, sweet baby, 

May thy future lot provide, 

But the Father’s love is boundless, 

And his mercy reacheth wide. 

It was a summer day, and the little boy 
was noisy with his rattle and drum, and his 
wooden men ; and the mother was worn and 
weary, and almost sick ; and to the little boy 
she said : “ O darling, mamma is tired, and 
her head aches ; please be still and let mamma 
rest.” The little boy was silent for a mo- 
ment, and then he crept up to his mother and 
climbed into her lap, and, smoothing back her 
hair, he kissed her on the brow again and 
again, and said : “ Poor mamma, does ’oor 
head ache! Tweet mamma, baby will tiss 
all de ache away ; dere now ; it is all gone ; 
be a dood mamma, and don’t ky.” He had 
learned that trick of love from herself ; her 
love had taught it. The baby-boy slipped 
from mother’s knee, and going to the farthest 
corner with his playthings, and looking up 
sweetly in his mother’s loving eyes, he said : 
“ Baby not noisy now, and all my men sail 
talk in whispers.” What could be more 


A BABE IN THE HOUSE 


6 7 


sweet and beautiful ? The mother was tired 
no longer, and her head ached no more ; but, 
springing up and holding out her hands, she 
cried in the fulness of a mother’s joy : “ Come 
here, my boy ; my darling, come ; come, and 
tell me: 

“ What are you good for, my brave little man ? 
Answer that question for me if you can, 

You, with your fingers as white as a nun, 

You, with your ringlets as bright as the sun ; 

All the day long with your busy contriving, 

Into all mischief and fun you are driving; 

See if your wise little noddle can tell 
What you are good for ; ponder it well.” 

Over the carpet the dear little feet 
Came with a patter to climb on her seat ; 

Two merry eyes, full of frolic and fun, 

Under their lashes, look bright as the sun ; 

Two little hands, pressing soft on her face, 

Drew her down close in loving embrace ; 

Two rosy lips gave the answer so true, 

“ Good to love you, mamma; good to love you! ” 

It may be a weakness, but it is a truth as 
deep as human life, that every mother is de- 
lighted when her boy shows her that he loves 


68 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


her above all others ; especially when, grow- 
ing older, he shows this to the world. Ruth 
Hall sweetly reveals this in a little poem in 
Wide Awake , in which the little boy in the 
play turns from all the pretty maidens around 
him, and kneels to his own mother as the 
prettiest of all, as the one whom he loves 
above all others : 

With shouts of laughter 
That followed after, 

This forfeit made its stern behest : 

“ Kneel to the prettiest, 

Bow to the wittiest, 

And kiss the one you love the best.” 

“ Come, choose her boldly,” 

They cry ; but coldly 
He turns from all the maidens there, 

To bow — and lingers 
To kiss her fingers, 

While kneeling at his mother’s chair. 


IV. 


CHILDREN IN THE HOME. 

This chapter will be a rambling talk about 
the children in the home, filled in with scraps 
of prose and bits of poetry gathered from 
many sources. Most of the poetry and some 
of the prose will be found to be not of very 
high literary merit; but we hope that the 
fragments, all taken together, will prove to 
be interesting and helpful both to parents and 
children. 

If we should call together all the children 
in any given neighborhood, we would not 
find among them many so perfect in form 
and feature that they could be chosen as 
models for painter or sculptor, and some of 
them might be downright ugly; and yet no 
scene in the world is more beautiful to be- 
hold, or more interesting to study, than a 
group of children thus gathered at random 
69 


70 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


in any decent neighborhood. A large body 
of children, such as may be seen at a Sunday- 
school picnic or excursion, is, like flowers in 
a field, a scene in which individual ugliness 
is lost in the general beauty of the whole 
view; and their joyful and shouting voices 
are like the songs of the birds in the grove, 
in which many discordant notes are heard 
without destroying the general harmony of 
the concert. We ask our readers to take 
what we have to say about the children in 
the home just as they would receive the 
children themselves, in the natural order, or 
rather disorder, of life ; grouping the beauti- 
ful and the ugly together, so that the beauty 
of the entire body shall overcome the ugli- 
ness of any member of it. In this way let us 
consider our present theme, and so endeavor 
to realize the beauty there is in a houseful of 
children. 

Some one said : “ People who put children 
away from them, and out of their hearts, 
and close the doors upon them, do not know 
how much comfort they set aside, nor of what 
pleasures and amusements they deprive them- 
selves. Of course the little creatures meddle 


CHILDREN IN THE HOME 


7 1 


with things, and leave the traces of their fin- 
gers on the walls, and cry and bother a lit- 
tle ; but when one gets in the way of it, as 
mothers and loving relatives do, these things 
come to be of minor importance. Children 
are such pretty creatures and do such funny 
things; the touch of their hands is so soft, 
the sound of their voices so sweet, their faces 
are so lovely, their movements so graceful and 
comical — the whole family goes wild over the 
children — and no wonder.” Another has 
said : “ How cold and selfish would this world 
of ours be without little children in it! They 
preach the evangel of beauty and innocence ; 
they break the incrustations of worldliness; 
they touch chords vibrating solemnly, sweetly, 
reserved for their tiny hands ; they preserve 
human sympathies from utter ossification ; 
they deeply subsoil our hard natures.” 

Of all the visions of beauty ever seen on 
earth, the smile of infancy is the most charm- 
ing; and of all the sounds of sweetness that 
ever fall on the human ear, the prattle of 
childhood is the most delightful. These two 
sources of the purest pleasures of human life 
seem to have escaped almost unharmed from 


72 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


the wreck that sin has made of all that is 
beautiful and lovely. The prattle of children 
in the home is a sweet melody floating down 
the generations, which, more than all else, 
compensates for the loss of the terrestrial 
paradise of the childhood of humanity where 
man fell, and which his sin has forever ban- 
ished from the earth ; and the smile of infancy 
is a ray of heavenly light, beaming down 
upon our darkness, and giving a foretaste of 
the celestial paradise which the Christ re- 
gained for us by becoming a child, that men, 
through him, might become the children of 
God, and follow him to heaven. 

A home without children in it is like a 
winter without fires, a spring without flowers, 
a summer without shades, and an autumn 
without fruits ; and a world without children 
in it would be like a dry and desert land 
where no water is — a land of silence and 
despair. 

A dreary place would be this earth, 

Were there no little people in it ; 

The song of life would lose its mirth, 

Were there no children to begin it; 


CHILDREN IN THE HOME 


73 


No little forms, like buds to grow, 

And make the admiring heart surrender ; 
No little hands on heart and brow, 

To keep the thrilling love-cords tender. 

The stern souls would grow more stern, 
Unfeeling nature more inhuman, 

And man to stoic coldness turn, 

And woman would be less than woman ; 
Life’s song, indeed, would lose its charm, 
Were there no babies to begin it: 

A doleful place this world would be, 

Were there no little people in it. 

A baby in the house is indeed “ a well- 
spring of pleasure ” ; but an only child is to 
be pitied. Its life is lonely, and it is in dan- 
ger of becoming selfish. It has no one with 
whom to share its pleasures, or to divide its 
sorrows. Two are always better than one. 
There is truth as well as poetry in the words 
of Mary Mapes Dodge : 

Two little girls are better than one, 

Two little boys can double the fun, 

Two little birds can build a fine nest, 

Two little arms can love mother best, 


74 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


Two little ponies must go to a span, 

Two little pockets has my little man, 

Two little eyes to open and close, 

Two little ears and one little nose, 

Two little elbows, dimpled and sweet, 

Two little shoes on two little feet, 

Two little lips and one little chin, 

Two little cheeks with a rose set in, 

Two little shoulders chubby and strong, 

Two little legs running all day long, 

Two little prayers does my darling say, 
Twice does he kneel by my side each day, 
Two little folded hands, soft and brown, 

Two little eyelids cast meekly down, 

And two little angels guard him in bed, 

One at the foot and one at the head. 

But three children, a little girl, a little boy, 
and a little baby, can have more fun than 
two ; and Carrie M. Thompson tells us how 
they can find it. 

Madge, wee woman, with earnest look 

Is head and ears in a fairy book ; 

Rob is a rogue with hair of tow ; 

Last but greatest is Baby Joe. 

Fastened down there 

In the big arm-chair, 


CHILDREN IN THE HOME 


75 


Stiff and angular, strong and square, 

He can’t get up and he can’t slide out ; 
Nothing to do but to wriggle about, 

Suck his thumbs and his rubber ring, 

And wonder vaguely about hrs shoes 
(Shiny and small, such as babies use) : 

How they ever came on his feet ? 

If they’re made to look at, or only to eat? 
Thinks quite strongly of making a spring 
In the hope of breaking the naughty thing 
That holds him a prisoner, snug and tight, 

In that tiresome chair from morning till night. 

But there comes Rob, with a funny face, 

Baby looks up and takes heart of grace ; 

All his sorrows and griefs are past ; 

Here is something to do at last. 

He gurgles and crows 
And wrinkles his nose, 

With one little dimple that comes and goes ; 

He stretches an arm with a doubled-up fis-t, 

Soft and rosy from elbow to wrist. 

For Rob has been puffing his red cheeks out 
Till they look like big apples he’s holding there, 
Ripe and shining and smooth and fair. 

Baby Joe strikes hard with his fist of pink 
At the puckered-up lips, then quicker than 
wink 


76 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


Rob jumps to his feet with a laugh and a shout, 
And capers and dances and whirls about ; 

But the best of the play is, that when it is done 
They can play it all Over again, 

Such fun! 

Where there is a house full of children 
there should be a home full of fun. Good 
parents, don’t be afraid of fun, and a “ heap 
of it,” at home. Don’t shut up your house 
lest the sun should fade your carpets, and 
your heart lest a hearty laugh shake down 
some of the musty old cobwebs there. If 
you want to ruin your sons, let them think 
that all mirth and social enjoyment must be 
left on the threshold without, when they 
come home at night. When once a home is 
regarded as only a place to eat, drink, and 
sleep in, the work begins that ends in gam- 
bling-houses and reckless dissipation. Young 
people must have fun and relaxation some- 
where. If they do not find it at their own 
hearthstones, it will be sought at other and 
perhaps less profitable places. Therefore let 
the fire burn brightly at night, and make the 
homestead delightful with all those little arts 


CHILDREN IN THE HOME 


77 


that parents so perfectly understand. Don’t 
repress the buoyant spirits of your children ; 
half an hour of merriment around the lamp 
and firelight of a home blots out the remem- 
brance of many a care and annoyance during 
the day ; and the best safeguard they can take 
with them into the world is the unseen influ- 
ence of a bright little domestic fireside. 

And let no parents, while making their 
homes a happy place for their own children, 
a place of freedom, innocent sports, and even 
hilarious fun, be over-careful in excluding 
other people’s children therefrom. Let your 
children have company ; speak cheerfully 
to the little folks who visit them, and make 
them feel that they are welcome. Teach 
your children to avoid the company of the 
vile and the vicious, the profane and the dis- 
honest ; but never teach them to scorn the 
company of the poor. Teach them always to 
return a polite salutation on the street ; and 
to speak first, and very kindly, to the chil- 
dren of the poor, wherever they may meet 
them. Right here, some thoughtless mothers 
make a dreadful mistake at life’s very begin- 
ning, and put a stumbling-block in the way 


78 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


of their children’s future usefulness and hap- 
piness. Sometimes they are brought to see 
it in a way that rebukes their folly and hu- 
miliates them in their own homes. Here is a 
case in point : 

“ Little Annie was prettily dressed, and 
standing in front of the house waiting for 
her mother to go out to ride. 

“ A tidy boy, dressed in coarse clothes, 
was passing, when the little girl said : 

“ ‘ Come here, boy, and s’ake hands wi’ 
me. I dot a boy dus’ like you, named 
Bobby.’ 

“ The boy laughed, shook hands with her, 
and said : 

“ ‘ I’ve got a little girl just like you, only 
she hasn’t any little cloak with pussy fur 
on it.’ 

“ Here a lady came out of the door, and 
said : 

“ ‘ Annie, you must not talk with bad boys 
on the street. I hope you haven’t taken 
anything from her? Go right along, and 
never stop here again, boy ! ’ 

“ That evening the lady was called down 
to speak with a boy in the hall. He was 


CHILDREN IN THE HOME 


79 


very neatly dressed, and stood with his cap 
in hand. It was the enemy of the morning. 

“ * I came to tell you that I am not a bad 
boy,’ he said. ‘ I go to Sunday-school, and 
help my mother all I can. I never tell lies, 
nor quarrel, nor say bad words ; and I don’t 
like a lady to call me names, and ask me 
if I’ve stolen her little girl’s clothes off of 
her!’ 

“ ‘ I’m very glad you’re so good,’ said 
the lady, laughing at the boy’s earnestness. 
‘ Here’s a quarter of a dollar for you.’ 

“‘I don’t want that!’ said Bob, holding 
his head very high. * My father works in a 
foundry, and has lots of money. You’ve got 
a boy bigger than I, haven’t you ? ’ 

“‘Yes; why ? ’ 

“ * Does he know the Commandments? ’ 

“ ‘ I’m afraid not very well.’ 

“ 1 Can he say the Sermon on the Mount, 
and the twenty-third Psalm, and the Golden 
Rule?’ 

“ ‘ I’m very much afraid he cannot/ said 
the lady, laughing at the boy’s bravery. 

“ ‘ Doesn’t he ride on his pony on Sunday, 
instead of going to church ? ’ 


8o 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


“ ‘ I’m afraid he does, but he ought not/ 
said the lady, blushing a little. 

“ ‘ Mother don’t know I came here/ said 
the bright little rogue, ‘ but I thought I 
would just come around and see what kind 
of folks you were, and — and — I guess mother 
would rather your boy wouldn’t come round 
our doors, because she don’t like little Mamie 
to talk to bad boys in the street. Good-by.’ 
And the little boy was gone.” 

Take an interest in your neighbor’s boy, 
even if he is rough, and rude, and full of mis- 
chief. Look out for the good points in him ; 
for you may be sure that he has some, unless 
he is radically wicked. If he has no down- 
right corrupt principles and wicked habits, 
invite him around occasionally to spend an 
hour with your boys. He will do them no 
harm, and you and they may do him a large 
amount of good. Read Marianne Farning- 
ham’s lines about “ My Neighbor’s Boy,” and 
learn a lesson from them : 

He seems to be several boys in one, 

So much is he constantly everywhere! 

And the mischievous things that boy has done 
No one can remember, nor mouth declare. 


CHILDREN IN THE HOME 


8l 


He fills the whole of his share of space 

With his strong, straight form, and his merry face. 

He is very cowardly, very brave, 

He is kind and cruel, good and bad, 

A brute and a hero! Who will save 

The best from the worst of my neighbor’s lad ? 
The mean and the noble strive to-day — 

Which of the powers will have its way? 

The world is needing his strength and skill, 

He will make hearts happy or make them ache. 
What power is in him for good or ill! 

Which of life’s paths will his swift feet take? 
Will he rise, and draw others up with him, 

Or the light that is in him burn low and dim? 

But what is my neighbor’s boy to me 

More than a nuisance? My neighbor’s boy, 
Though I have some fears for what he may be, 

Is the source of solicitude, hope, and joy, 

And a constant pleasure. Because I pray 
That the best that is in him will rule some day. 

He passes me with a smile and nod, 

He knows I have hope of him — guesses, too, 
That I whisper his name when I ask of God 
That men may be righteous, his will to do. 

And I think that many would have more joy 
If they loved and prayed for a neighbor's boy! 


82 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


Children are generally just what the home 
training makes them, both in manners and in 
morals. Children, when they are brought 
into public notice, as they are at summer 
watering-places, are windows through which 
we look into home life, and see what manner 
of homes they are being raised in, and what 
is their parental training. 

“ In visiting the springs, our sympathies 
have been much aroused for the children. 
Everybody abuses the bad children. Whose 
fault is it they are bad? We see hundreds 
of bright children who are faithfully taught 
that it ,is a sin to steal, or tell stories, and 
their loving little hearts turn away in disgust 
from one who would break either of these 
commandments. These same children are 
impudent to their mothers, and disobey their 
commands. Have they ever been taught 
that this was as great a sin as to steal ? No ; 
the children are generally made to feel it is 
ugly, very much in the same way that having 
a dirty face is ugly. The parents are most 
to be blamed here, not the children. If they 
don’t steal because they have been taught 
that it is a great sin, and their parents would 


CHILDREN IN THE HOME 


83 


be doing very great wrong to let them steal, 
would not the same mode of instruction teach 
them it was a sin to disobey, and the parents 
were themselves committing great sin to let 
them do so ? It is the parents’ duty to teach 
the children this, but is it not the minister’s 
duty also to teach the parents? Why not 
teach the fifth commandment to parents as 
well as to children, and make them feel it is 
as much their duty to make children obey as 
to teach them the other commandments ? 

“ The clergy certainly consider it as great 
a sin to break this commandment as the 
others; then for the gospel’s sake preach it, 
for the world does not. The manner in 
which the fifth commandment is preached 
and taught is, we believe, one main reason 
for a large part of the wickedness of the pres- 
ent generation.” 

If you would have your children to be kind 
to one another at home, and to live together 
in peace and love, teach them to be kind to 
the children whom they meet in school, to 
the children they meet at the summer-resorts, 
to dumb animals, and especially to the birds. 
How few birds ever die a natural death! 


8 4 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


Men and boys kill most of them before they 
live out half their days. 

“ A gentleman was walking past a neat 
cottage in a rural district. The cottage was 
not many feet from the highway, but between 
them was a low tree, and in the branches of 
this tree the gentleman observed a bird’s nest. 
The cottage door was open ; the mother was 
busily at work, and her children were merry 
in their youthful gambols; but the birds flew 
to and fro without alarm. How was this? 
On inquiry, the gentleman found that the 
mother took a delight in teaching her children 
the great importance of kindness to all God’s 
creatures, and instead of even frightening the 
little birds away, they were ever ready to 
give, not only their crumbs, but their bread, 
to the little feathered ones. 

“‘You do wisely, my good woman,’ said 
the gentleman ; * if all mothers would thus 
train up their children, there would be much 
more happiness in families than there is, for 
I have generally observed that where children 
are kind to dumb animals they are affection- 
ate and loving to their brothers and sisters.’ ” 

I suppose that the very happiest home that 


CHILDREN IN THE HOME 


85 


was ever on earth was the home of Mary and 
Joseph at Nazareth, in which the child Jesus 
grew up, perhaps in the midst of a houseful 
of brothers and sisters, and in which he was 
subject to his parents. It was the model 
home of the world, and Jesus was the model 
child of the race. Let the story of the child 
Jesus as he “ increased in wisdom and stature, 
and in power with God and man/’ be often 
told to the children. Here it is in some beau- 
tiful verses, written by Margaret Sangster, 
with which all mothers would do well to cause 
their children to become familiar, repeating 
them so often that they would eventually 
learn them by heart. 

Dear little children, reading 
The Scripture’s sacred page, 

Think! Once the blessed Jesus 
Was just a child, your age ; 

And in the home with Mary, 

His mother sweet and fair, 

He did her bidding gladly, 

And lightened all her care. 

I’m sure he never loitered, 

But at her softest word 


36 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


He heeded, and he hastened — 

No errand was deferred. 

And in the little household 
The sunbeams used to shine 
So merrily and blithely 
Around the child divine. 

I fear you sometimes trouble 
Your patient mother’s heart, 

Forgetful that in home life 
The children’s happy part 
Is but like little soldiers 
Their duty quick to do, 

To mind commands when given — 

What easy work for you ! 

Within good Luke’s evangel 
This gleams a precious gem, 

That Christ when with his parents 
Was “ subject unto them.” ' 

Consider, little children ; 

Be like him day by day, 

So gentle, meek, and loving, 

And ready to obey. 

If the world without children in it would 
be a doleful place, and if the home without 
children in it is lonely and desolate, how sad 


CHILDREN IN THE HOME 


87 


and lonely must be the life of the orphan 
child who has no home to shelter it, and no 
parents to surround it with an atmosphere of 
love. Let all mothers read to their children 
the following lines, and teach them to thank 
God every day for their happy homes, for 
their loving parents, and their kind-hearted 
brothers and sisters : 


Alone in the dreary, pitiless street, 

With my torn old dress and bare cold feet, 

All day I have wandered to and fro, 

Hungry and shivering, and nowhere to go ; 

The night’s coming on in darkness and dread, 
And the chill sleet beating upon my bare head. 
Oh, why does the wind blow on me so wild? 

Is it because I am nobody’s child? 


Just over the way there’s a flood of light 
And warmth and beauty and all things bright ; 
Beautiful children, in robes so fair, 

Are caroling songs in their rapture there. 

I wonder if they in their blissful glee 
Would pity a poor little beggar like me, 
Wandering alone in the merciless street, 

Naked and shivering and nothing to eat? 


88 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


Oh! what shall I do when the night comes down, 
In its terrible blackness, all over the town? 

Shall lay me down ’neath the angry sky, 

On the cold, hard pavement, alone to die, 

When the beautiful children their prayers have 
said, 

And their mammas have tucked them up snugly 
in bed? 

For no dear mamma on me ever smiled, — 

Why is it, I wonder, I’m nobody’s child? 

No father, no mother, no sister, not one 
In all the world loves me, e’en the little dogs run 
When I wander too near ; ’tis wondrous to see 
How everything shrinks from a beggar like me! 
Perhaps ’tis a dream ; but sometimes when I lie 
Gazing far up in the deep, blue sky, 

Watching for hours some large, bright star, 

I fancy the beautiful gates are ajar. 

And a host of white-robed nameless things 
Come fluttering o’er me on gilded wings ; 

A hand that is strangely soft and fair 
Caresses gently my tangled hair ; 

And a voice like the carol of some wild bird — 
The sweetest voice that was ever heard — 

Calls me many a dear pet name, 

Till my heart and spirit are all aflame. 


CHILDREN IN THE HOME 


89 


They tell me of such unbounded love, 

And bid me come up to their home above ; 
And then with such pitiful, sad surprise, 

They look at me with their sweet, tender eyes, 
And it seems to me, out of the dreary night, 

I am going up to that world of light ; 

And away from the hunger and storm so wild, 
I am sure I shall then be somebody’s child. 


V. 


THE CHILDREN’S BED-TIME HOUR. 

The most' important hour in the lives of 
children is, perhaps, the hour in which they 
are put to bed for the night. The last im- 
pressions of the closing day sleep with them 
through the silent hours. And as their eyes 
are closing in sleep, their hearts are open, 
more than at any other time, to all good in- 
fluences. Then it is that kind and loving 
words fall upon them like the gentle dews 
that distill at night upon the tender grass. 
Who will not be pleased to read the following 
lines of Jane E. Hopkins, in which is pictured 
a home scene that has been often witnessed 
by all mothers who are blessed with a house- 
ful of children? 

The clock strikes seven in the hall, 

The curfew of the children’s day, 

That calls each little pattering foot 
From dance and song and livelong play ; 

90 


THE CHILDREN’S BED-TIME HOUR 91 


Their day that, in our wider light, 

Floats like a silver day-moon white, 

Nor in our darkness sinks to rest, 

But sets within a golden west. 

Ah, tender hour that sends a drift 
Of children’s kisses through the house, 

And cuckoo-notes of sweet “ Good-night,” 
That thoughts of heaven and home arouse ; 
And a soft stir of sense and heart, 

As when the bee and blossom part ; 

And little feet that patter slower, 

Like the last droppings of a shower. 

And in the children’s room aloft 
What blossom shapes do gaily slip 
Their dainty sheaths, and rosy run 
From clasping hand and kissing lip; 

A naked sweetness to the eye — 

Blossom, and babe, and butterfly 
In witching one, so dear a sight! 

An ecstasy of life and light. 

And ah, what loving witcheries 
Bestrew the floor ! an empty sock, 

By vanquished song and dance let loose 
As dead birds’ throats ; a tiny smock 




92 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 

That, sure, upon some meadow grew, 

And drank the heaven-sweet rain ; a shoe 
Scarce bigger than an acorn cup ; 

Frocks that seemed flowery meads cut up. 

Then, lily-dressed in angel white, 

To mother’s knee they trooping come, 

The soft palms fold like kissing shells, 

And they and we go singing home — 

Their bright heads bowed and worshiping, 
As though some glory of the spring, 

Some daffodil that mocks the day, 

Should fold his golden palms and pray. 

The gates of paradise swing wide 
A moment’s space in soft accord, 

And those dread Angels, Life and Death, 

A moment veil the flaming sword, 

As o’er this weary world forlorn 
From Eden’s secret heart is borne 
That breath of paradise most fair, 

Which mothers call “ the children’s prayer.” 

Ah, deep, pathetic mystery! 

The world’s great woe unconscious hung, 

A rain-drop on a blossom’s lip ; 

White innocence that woos our wrong, 


THE CHILDREN’S BED-TIME HOUR 93 

And love divine that looks again, 
Unconscious of the Cross and pain, 

From sweet child-eyes, and in that child 
Sad earth and heaven reconciled. 

Then kissed, on beds we lay them down, 

As fragrant-white as clover’d sod, 

Where all the faded flowers grow fresh, 
While children sleep, in dews of God. 

And as our stars their beams do hide, 

The stars of twilight, opening wide, 

Take up the heavenly tale at even, 

And light us on to God and heaven. 

Children should be put to bed early, for 
plentiful and peaceful sleep is a good medicine 
for soul and body, both for young and old. 
The mother, if possible, should be with her 
children during the last hour before they fall 
asleep. They will then listen with hushed 
attention to whatever is told, or read, or sung 
to them ; and the words spoken with the good- 
night kiss will sleep with them, and be whis- 
pered again in their dreams. That is the 
hour for mothers to impress upon their plastic 
nature the thoughts which they wish them to 
remember longest. 


94 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


Every mother who has formed the habit of 
reading, talking, and singing to her children 
after they have been tucked away in their 
little beds, will bear joyful witness to the value 
of this form of maternal influence. In that 
hallowed hour all the little wrong deeds and 
irritations of the day can be talked over most 
quietly, and smoothed out most sweetly ; and 
the duties of children to their parents, and to 
one another, can be presented in their most 
attractive forms. 

But care must be taken that these talks 
with the children, immediately before sleep, 
do not take the form of preaching. It should 
be a cheerful, laughing talk, or at least a talk 
that will cover their little faces with smiles. 
Let your child always go to sleep with a glad 
thought in its heart and a smile on its face. 
The next morning as it springs from its bed 
the glad thought will burst out in songs, and 
the smile in shouts of laughter. If a wrong 
has to be reproved, let the child be assured 
of forgiveness, and let the mother be assured 
that forgiveness is accepted, before the eyes 
shall close. Let the child fall asleep loving 
all, and assured of the love of all. Then, af- 


THE CHILDREN’S BED-TIME HOUR 95 

ter the little prayer has been said, the child, 
at peace with all on earth, and with the smile 
of heaven’s love on its face, will drop away 
into peaceful slumber with its soul all un- 
ruffled and unsoiled, as white and smooth as 
a freshly washed and ironed piece of snow- 
white linen. It is always a solemn thing to 
fall asleep. We can never know where the 
waking may find us. Any night, the rosy 
child or the healthful mother may sleep into 
the sleep of death. Then always let the 
good-night kiss be accompanied with a word 
of peace, a word of love and sweet tranquillity. 

It is a piece of downright cruelty — one of 
the crimes which law cannot reach — for a 
thoughtless and fretful mother to scold her 
children away from her presence at night, 
and to drive them to bed with sharp and 
angry words. Of all the sad sounds ever 
heard in this sorrowful world of ours, the 
saddest is the suppressed sob of a little child, 
the smothered cry of a wounded heart, com- 
ing from beneath the bedclothes, as it weeps 
itself to sleep because of a mother’s unkind- 
ness. It is a greater misfortune to be the 
child of a scolding mother than to be the child 


96 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


of a drunken father. There ought to be a 
law, were it possible, to prohibit maternity to 
such women. We are thankful to believe that 
such mothers are but few, and that, in most 
cases, they are diseased in body or in mind. 

The mother may be work-worn and heart- 
weary, and the children may be tired and 
cross; but let no mother ever so far forget 
herself as to lead her children to forget that 
she is their mother. Let her remember that 
not only her words, but the tones in which 
they are spoken, will, at that most solemn 
moment, make the deepest and most lasting 
impressions on their tender souls; and that 
they may determine their weal or woe, for 
time and for eternity. 

Send the children to bed with a kiss and a smile ; 
Sweet childhood will tarry at best but a while ; 
And soon they will pass from the portals of home, 
The wilderness ways of their life-work to roam. 

Yes, tuck them in bed with a gentle “ Good- 
night ! ” 

The mantle of shadows is veiling the light ; 

And maybe — God knows — on this sweet little face, 
May fall deeper shadows in life’s weary race. 


THE CHILDREN’S BED-TIME HOUR 97 

Yes, say it : “ God bless my dear children, I pray ! ” 
It may be the last you will say it for aye! 

The night may be long ere you see them again ; 
And motherless children may call you in vain ! 

Drop sweet benedictions on each little head, 

And fold them in prayer as they nestle in bed ; 

A guard of bright angels around them invite, 

The spirit may slip from the mooring to-night. 

The children’s room is, to the heart of the 
real mother, the most precious and the most 
sacred chamber of the house. It is at once 
a palace, a play-ground, a schoolroom, a 
treasure-store, and a church. In it the true 
mother is as a queen in her palace, whose 
authority none can deny or disobey ; but still 
none stand in awe of her, for she leads, all the 
children in their play, watches over their 
studies, and, with or without books, teaches 
them lessons which no other can teach ; and 
when the little ones are covered up in their 
beds, she guards the room with greater vigi- 
lance than an armed soldier at his post, for it 
is the treasure-chamber in which her crown- 
jewels are stored away ; and, finally, she walks 
in it as high-priestess before the most sacred 


9 8 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


altar of worship, dictating the creed which 
her children will receive, and fashioning the 
order of worship which they will follow. She 
enters that room at all hours of the night, and 
sees when she is not seen ; but it is also true 
that she is often seen and heard when she 
thinks that every child’s eye and ear are 
closed in slumber. 

How peaceful at night 
The sleeping children lie, 

Each gentle breath so light 
Escaping like a sigh! 

How tranquil seems the room, how fair 

To one who softly enters there! 

Whose hands are those, unseen, 

That smooth each little bed? 

Whose locks are those that lean 
Over each pillowed head? 

Whose lips caress the boys and girls? 

Whose fingers stroke the golden curls? 

Whose are the yearning eyes, 

And whose the trembling tear? 

Whose heart is this that cries, 

Beseeching God to hear? 

Whose but the mother’s, in whose face 

Love shows its sweetest dwelling-place? 


THE CHILDREN’S BED-TIME HOUR 99 

Her hopes in beauty bloom, 

And heaven sends down its light, 

Which lingers in the room 

Where mother says, “ Good-night.” 

Soft treading by the sleepers there, 

Her very presence seems a prayer ! 

Who can ever forget the sweet and sacred 
associations of the children’s sleeping-room, 
and of childhood’s bed-time hour? We may 
seem for a while to forget, but some word at 
random spoken, or some object unexpectedly 
seen, will, all of a sudden, bring back child- 
hood’s sweet memories. Then we see, as it 
were, bright clouds all fringed in darkness, 
resting on the far-off horizon of life; and 
peering through them, we catch a glimpse of 
the face of the dear mother, now sainted in 
heaven, at whose knee we learned to pray ; 
and then there come floating back to us bits 
of stories and snatches of songs which she told 
and sung to us on sleep’s borderland, and 
listening to which we oftentimes sank to our 
repose. 

In this connection I cannot refrain from 
transcribing the pathetic words of the song 
about “ My Trundle-bed,” knowing at the 


IOO 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


same time that most of my readers already 
know them by heart. 

As I rummaged through the attic, 

Listening to the falling rain 
As it pattered on the shingles 
And against the window-pane, 

Peeping over chests and boxes, 

Which with dust were thickly spread, 

Saw I, in the farthest corner, 

What was once my trundle-bed. 

As I listened, recollections, 

That I thought had been forgot, 

Came with all the gush of memory, 

Rushing, thronging to the spot ; 

And I wandered back to childhood, 

To those merry days of yore, 

When I knelt beside my mother, 

By this bed upon the floor. 

So I drew it from the recess, 

Where it had remained so long ; 

Hearing all the while the music 
Of my mother’s voice in song ; 

As she sung in sweetest accents, 

What I since have often read, — 

“ Hush, my dear, be still and slumber, 

Holy angels guard thy bed.” 


THE CHILDREN’S BED-TIME HOUR IOI 


Years have passed, and that dear mother 
Long has moldered ’neath the sod ; 

And I trust her sainted spirit 
Revels in the house of God. 

But that scene at summer twilight 
Never has from memory fled; 

And it comes in all its freshness 
When I see my trundle-bed. 

Then it was, with hands so gently 
Placed upon my infant head, 

That she taught my lips to utter 
Carefully the words she said. 

Never can they be forgotten, 

Deep are they in memory driven, — 

“Hallowed be thy name, O, Father! 

Father, thou who art in heaven.” 

This she taught me, then she told me 
Of its import great and deep ; 

After which I learned to utter, 

“ Now I lay me down to sleep.” 

Then it was, with hands uplifted, 

And in accents soft and mild, 

That my mother asked — “ Our Father ! 
Father, do thou bless my child.” 

Yes, we remember the little trundle-bed in 
which we used to sleep, and the old arm-chair 


102 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


in which mother used to sit, and the rocking- 
chair in which she rocked the baby to sleep ; 
and how, moving that chair into the adjoining 
room, she there rocked herself in it after we 
children had all been tucked away in our little 
beds. That chair had a creak, and other 
creaking chairs have often and sweetly brought 
mother and her rocking-chair back to our 
memory. 

Sitting alone in the shadow 
Of years as well as -of care, 

I hear in the room adjoining 

The creak of an old rocking-chair. 

And my thoughts go back to my childhood, 
When the “ Good-nights ” all were said, 

And mother, gentle and patient, 

Had put the children to bed. 

And then in the room adjoining 
She kept up her labor and care, 

And as. she darned stockings, we heard 
The creak of the old rocking-chair. 

What a sense of comfort stole o’er me, 

Of security and rest, 

The safety and peace of the bird 
Asleep in the family nest. 


THE CHILDREN’S BED-TIME HOUR 103 

O Father, bring back to my heart, 

So old, so weary and sore, 

Longing to-night for home, 

The thoughts of my childhood once more. 

In thee let me feel the safety, 

The perfect trust that was there, 

When I heard, half waking, half sleeping, 

The creak of the old rocking-chair. 




VI. 

THE CHILD’S EVENING PRAYER. 

There are many beautiful evening prayers 
for children ; but there is one which is rec- 
ognized by all as, par excellence, the child’s 
evening prayer. We do not say the children’s 
evening prayer, because it is a prayer that 
each child is to say for itself, and by itself. 
It is a personal and a thoroughly selfish 
prayer. 

Now I lay me down to sleep, 

I pray thee, Lord, my soul to keep ; 

If I should die before I wake, 

I pray thee, Lord, my soul to take. 

This prayer is in use in all Christian families 
where there is a child. It stands by the side 
of the Lord’s Prayer, as its younger brother. 
It has sometimes, and not inappropriately, 
been called the mother’s prayer, because it is 
almost always taught by the mother, and 
learned by the child kneeling at her knee. 

104 


THE CHILD’S EVENING PRAYER 105 

Most Christian mothers teach their children 
to repeat it as soon as their little tongues can 
put its simple words together. 

Indeed, many mothers, long before their 
babes can utter a single syllable, fold their 
little hands and teach them to be still while 
they repeat its beautiful words for them. 
Many aged men and women cannot remem- 
ber the time when they did not know it. It 
seems to have always been with them, as if 
they had been born with it in their hearts. 

The following beautiful lines of Richard 
Roe picture for us a family scene which is 
witnessed in thousands of Christian homes 
where there is a praying mother, and prat- 
tling children, and a darling cherub babe upon 
her knee — a babe that is just beginning to 
notice, but is yet unable to utter an articulate 
word. 

Our little babe ; our bright-eyed one ; 

Our youngest, darling joy ; 

We teach, at evening hour, to kneel 
Beside our little boy ; 

And though she cannot lisp a word, 

Nor breathe a simple prayer, 


106 AT MOTHER’S KNEE 

We know that her Maker blesseth her 

The while she kneeleth there. 

If ever the praises of heaven pause to give 
full audience to a prayer rising from earth, 
it is when the baby child, after the shadows 
have gathered around the hearthstone where 
family prayer has just been offered, comes, 
dressed in its snow-white night-clothes, and 
at mother’s knee, in the simple language of 
the child’s evening prayer, commits its soul, 
for the hours of sleep and silence, in the full 
trust of childhood’s perfect faith, into the 
keeping of Him who never slumbers nor 
sleeps. Especially is this so when the mother 
is found pouring out her own soul in silent 
prayer for the safe-keeping and final salvation 
of the child, precious to her heart as her own 
life ; for in that moment, when the prayers of 
mother and child are blending and rising to- 
gether to the throne of the Heavenly Father, 
is realized most truly what we often sing: 

Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire, 

Uttered or unexpressed; 

The motion of a hidden fire 
That trembles in the breast. 


THE CHILD’S EVENING PRAYER IOJ 

It is not now known, and perhaps never 
will be known, who wrote the child’s evening 
prayer. It is generally ascribed to the saintly, 
and now sainted, Dr. Watts; but we are by 
no means sure that he was the author of it. 
It is found among the anecdotes which illus- 
trate Dr. Watts’s “ Divine and Moral Songs 
for Children,” but is introduced there in a 
way that implies that Dr. Watts was not its 
author. We have not been able, however, to 
find, in a diligent search, any trace of its ex- 
istence prior to his day. For this reason, 
and because he did compose so many sweet 
and beautiful things for children, many have 
attributed it to him, without sufficient evi- 
dence; but it certainly does bear a strong 
resemblance to his writings, in that it is at 
once so simple and so sublime. The nearest 
approach to it which we have been able to 
find in Dr. Watts’s compositions is the fol- 
lowing stanza in one of his evening hymns : 

I lay my body down to sleep ; 

Let angels guard my head, 

And, through the hours of darkness, keep 
Their watch around my bed. 


io8 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


It is more than probable that the little 
prayer, as we now have it, was a stanza in 
an old evening hymn for children, of which 
all the other stanzas have been lost, and, with 
them, the name of the author. The follow- 
ing lines are very appropriate to be quoted 
just here. The writer says of them : “ Years 
ago, out of the fullness of my heart, I wrote 
the wish embodied in the lines that follow. 
As long as I live I shall feel that the pure 
spirit that penned the immortal lines of the 
child’s prayer finds his or her exceeding bliss 
in heaven in the midst of the myriads of 
children who, just before dropping to sleep 
at night, and finally into the sleep of death, 
committed themselves wholly and simply to 
the care of their Maker and Keeper.” 

Golden head so lowly bending, 

Little feet so white and bare ; 

Dewy eyes half shut, half opened, 

Lisping out her evening prayer. 

Well she knows, when she is saying, 

“ Now I lay me down to sleep,” 

’Tis to God that she is praying, 

Praying him her “ soul to keep.” 


THE CHILD’S EVENING PRAYER 109 


Half asleep and murmuring faintly, 

“ If I should die before I wake ; ” 

Tiny fingers clasped so saintly, 

“ I pray thee, Lord, my soul to take.” 

Oh! the rapture sweet, unbroken, 

Of the soul that wrote this prayer! 

Children’s myriad voices floating 
Up to heaven, record it there. 

If, of all that has been written, 

I could choose what might be mine, 

It would be that child’s petition 
Rising to the throne divine. 

Then at last, when bells are tolling, 

“ Earth to earth, and dust to dust,” 

My freed soul, on faith uplifted, 

Faith, and love, and perfect trust, 

Would approach him, humbly praying — 

All the children clustering round — 

“Jesus, Saviour, take thy servant, 

Give to her thy children’s crown.” 

The catholicity of the child’s evening prayer 
is one of its most remarkable features. All 


I 10 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


creeds and sects of Christians can, and do, 
adopt it; and its acceptability is even wider 
than Christianity itself. Many J ewish mothers 
are now teaching their little children to use it 
as their night prayer. There is not a thought 
in it which can be objectionable to Jew, or 
pagan, or Mohammedan. It is a prayer that 
can be used by all who recognize the exist- 
ence of a supreme Lord, who hears the voices 
of his creatures in prayer, and spreads over 
them the mantle of his protecting love. 

It is more universal than Pope’s celebrated 
Universal Prayer, and yet is free from all of 
its objectionable characteristics, because its 
universality is not the patent, but a latent, 
feature of it. It implies but one simple doc- 
trine, resting wholly on one single article of 
faith, that enters into the creed of all infants 
as soon as they are able to speak, namely, 
that there is a supreme God who hears their 
voices when they pray, and who watches over 
them both by day and by night. 

There is not the least danger that the latent 
universality of the child’s evening prayer can 
ever convey to the child’s mind the shadow 
of an erroneous doctrine. It is always and 


THE CHILD’S EVENING PRAYER ill 


only the God of the mother that the child 
worships. Universal and acceptable as the 
prayer is to Catholic or Protestant, to Uni- 
tarian or Trinitarian, to Christian or Jew, to 
Mohammedan or pagan, it is always to the 
God of the mother that the child prays ; and 
this prayer contains all the truth about God 
and prayer that the child is yet able to com- 
prehend — simply, that there is a God who 
hears and answers. Beginning with this as a 
foundation, every mother can build upon it 
the higher doctrines of her own faith s as the 
child’s mind becomes capable of taking in the 
deeper mysteries of her creed. Most Chris- 
tian mothers, at a very early period, add the 
line, “ And this I ask for Jesus’ sake,” thus 
beginning early to teach their children that 
all God’s blessings come to us through the 
mediation and merits of Jesus Christ. 

In most minds the mother’s prayer is as- 
sociated with the Lord’s Prayer; and, in the 
points of simple language and broad catho- 
licity, they are very similar. There is not a 
word in the Lord’s Prayer that a child can- 
not utter and understand ; and any religionist, 
Jew, pagan, or Mohammedan, who recognizes 


1 12 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


a supreme Lord who is Father of all men, can 
use it in perfect consistency with his own 
peculiar creed. Of course, in the mouth of 
the representative of each creed it has a dif- 
ferent meaning — the meaning which the creed 
of the worshiper infuses into it. To us it is 
thoroughly a Christian prayer, impregnated 
in every petition with the latent idea of the 
Holy Trinity, because we find it imbedded in 
the very heart of the gospel ; but, taken out 
of its living connection, it becomes a prayer 
as universal as the Fatherhood of God and 
the brotherhood of men. It can be translated 
into all human languages, and transfused into 
all human creeds ; and so comprehensive is it, 
that it covers all human necessities. 

The child’s evening prayer is like it in its 
universal adaptability, but unspeakably infe- 
rior to it in comprehensibility ; but it com- 
prises all that the child can need while it is 
asleep. If it were more comprehensive, it 
would not be so suitable as it is for a night 
prayer for children. The child using it com- 
mits itself wholly into the hands of the Lord, 
for life or death, until the sleep-time shall be 
over and the morning light shall dawn. What 


THE CHILD’S EVENING PRAYER. 1 13 

more could be needed? The whole case is 
covered. 

In a literary point of view the little prayer 
is as nearly perfect as it is possible for a 
human production to be. No improvement 
has ever been suggested, except that there is 
wanting a syllable in the first line to complete 
the rhythm ; or that the auxiliary “ should ” 
ought to be dropped out of the third line, 
which is sometimes done. If, as already sug- 
gested, the prayer was originally a stanza, 
perhaps the last one, of an old evening hymn, 
then originally it read, “ And now I lay me 
down to sleep.” 

It has also been said that the prayer, in its 
usual form, is selfish, because the child prays 
only for itself. As a remedy for this, it has 
been suggested that the word “all” be sub- 
stituted for the word “ soul ” in the second 
line. In that case the mother would have to 
explain that the word all means father, 
mother, brother, sister, friends, and strangers 
— in short, everybody and everything. But 
even then it would be “my all” and the sup- 
posed selfishness would still remain. It would 
be hard to get a child to understand the pur- 


4 


AT MOTHER'S KNEE 


port of the proposed change ; and if it should 
understand it, the point of its prayer would 
be lost in its diffusiveness. The source of 
much weakness in the prayers of grown 
people is to be found in their diffusiveness. 
They mean nothing in particular, because they 
mean everything in general. 

And besides, we are not so sure but that 
the first prayer of the child should be a 
thoroughly selfish one. The child must first 
be made to feel its individual relationship to 
God, and its complete dependence upon him 
for daily life. No one can ever learn to pray 
earnestly for others until he has first learned 
to pray availingly for himself. As the child 
grows older it is to be taught other prayers, 
and in these may be embodied petitions broad 
enough to comprehend all in whom it has 
come to be interested. 

After carefully considering all the criticisms 
that have come under our notice, we are of 
the opinion that it would be very unwise to 
make the least change in form or expression ; 
and we regard it, as now generally used, as 
the most precious and perfect gem in our 
language, and as perfectly fulfilling the two 


THE CHILD’S EVENING PRAYER. 1 1 5 

vital conditions of prayer expressed in the 
lines : 

Prayer is the simplest form of speech 
That infant lips can try ; 

Prayer the sublimest strains that reach 
The Majesty on high. 


VII. 


POEMS ABOUT THE CHILD’S EVENING 
PRAYER. 

A GREAT many sweet little poems have 
been written about the child’s evening prayer, 
and they all show how deeply it has im- 
bedded itself in the religious life and thought 
of those who love home and children. None 
of them are remarkable for any high poetic 
merit, and some of them can hardly be dig- 
nified with the name of poetry at all ; but we 
all read and love them, because they express 
thoughts and emotions that gush out of the 
heart of home life. Most of them are mere 
verses in rhyme that were written by those 
whose hearts were but lightly touched with 
poetic fire ; but they are interesting, and find 
their way to our hearts, because they breath 
the spirit of domestic peace. Father and 
mother and children around the hearthstone, 
or kneeling at the family altar, with the 
116 


POEMS ABOUT THE CHILD’S PRAYER 1 17 

mother and the babe most prominent in the 
picture, are seen and heard in nearly all of 
them. 

How many men whose heads are now gray 
love to let memory linger on the time when 
they kneeled “ at mother’s knee,’’ and, with 
her hand tenderly resting upon their heads, 
learned the sweet words of the little prayer! 
And how many have been made better men 
through life thereby! How sweet the re- 
membrance of the prayer-hour, and then the 
good-night kisses! Such hallowed memories 
have held many a man to God and virtue 
when all other restraints were ready to give 
way. This is the thought, sweetly expressed, 
in the following lines, which were written by 
the late Dr. Milo Smith — a name unknown 
to fame — when he was an old man nearing 
the grave. They will touch a chord of sym- 
pathy in all hearts where lingers the sweet 
memory of the sainted mother and the child- 
hood’s home. 

“Now I lay me down to sleep,” — 

At mother’s knee I’ve often prayed ; 

And memory will the lesson keep, 

Though oft in Folly’s path I’ve strayed. 


1 1 8 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


“Now I lay me down to sleep,” — 

How fancy makes my mother’s hands 
Rest on my head ! I see her weep, 

While o’er my couch in prayer she stands. 

“Now I lay me down to sleep,” — 

Do not the words, with magic art, 

Come stealing over memories deep, 

Waking sad feelings in the heart? 

“Now I lay me down to sleep,” — 

My childhood hours are wafted on 
By Memory’s wand, and oft I weep 
To think those happy days are gone. 

“Now I lay me down to sleep,” — 

His heart is cold who has not felt 
A thrill of pleasure o’er him creep, 

As Memory by dear mother knelt. 

“Now I lay me down to sleep,” — 

The scoffer’s sneer my faith can’t shake, 
But mother’s precepts I will keep 
Until the Lord my soul shall take. 

For men to fall asleep at their prayers is 
one thing ; but for tired children to fall asleep 
with the half-uttered words of the evening 


POEMS ABOUT THE CHILD’S PRAYER 1 1 9 

prayer still hanging on their lips is quite 
another. Men fall asleep in their devotions 
when the spirit of prayer is dying in their 
hearts; but children, tired and drowsy, are 
found praying when overtaken with sleep, 
and the spirit of prayer follows them even 
into their slumbers. In the one case it is 
prayer overcome by sleep ; and in the other 
it is sleep embraced in prayer. I know of 
nothing more lifelike than the picture painted 
in the following lines, written by Mrs. E. H. 
Morse, of Ala., — a picture which all mothers 
have seen, a little child going to sleep while 
saying its evening prayer : 

“ Now I lay me ” — repeat it, darling ; 

“ Lay me,” lisped the tiny lips 

Of my daughter kneeling, bending 
O’er her folded finger-tips. 

“ Down to sleep ” — “ To sleep,” she murmured, 
And the curly head bent low ; 

“ I pray thee, Lord,” — I gently added, 

“ You can say it all, I know.” 

“ Pray thee, Lord,” the sound came faintly ; 
Fainter still — “my soul to keep;” 


120 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


Then the tired head fairly nodded, 

And the child was fast asleep. 

But the dewy eyes half opened 
When I clasped her to my breast, 

And the dear voice softly whispered, 

“ Mamma, God knows all the rest.” 

Oh, the trusting, sweet confiding 
Of the child-heart! Would that I 
Thus might trust my Heavenly Father, 

He who hears my feeblest cry. 

John Quincy Adams is reported to have 
said that he never closed his eyes in sleep 
without repeating, as his last utterance for 
the day, the simple and trustful words of the 
child’s evening prayer; and it is further stated 
that finally “ he fell into that sleep from which 
the voice of the archangel alone can awaken 
him, with its sweet words last upon his lips.” 
The prayer is a pillow of trust and comfort 
on which the head of childhood sleeps from 
night to night ; and at the last it often be- 
comes a pillow of faith and hope on which 
the aged lay themselves down to sleep in the 
resignation expressed in the following lines, 
written by Louise Chandler Moulton : 


POEMS ABOUT THE CHILD’S PRAYER 12 I 


Now we lay us down to sleep, 

And leave to God the rest ; 

Whether to wake and weep, 

Or wake no more, be best. 

Why vex our souls with care? 

Thy grace is cool and low ; 

Have we found life so fair 
That we should dread to go? 

We have kissed love’s sweet, red lips, 
And left them sweet and red ; 

The rose the wild bee sips 
Blooms on when he is dead. 

Some faithful friends we’ve found ; 
But those who love us best, 

When we are under ground 
Will laugh on with the rest. 

No tasks have we begun 
But other hands can take ; 

No work beneath the sun 
For which we need to wake. 

Then hold us fast, sweet death, 

If so it seemeth best 

To Him who gave us breath, 

That we should go to rest. 


122 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


We lay us down to sleep, 

Our weary eyes we close; 

Whether to wake and weep, 

Or wake no more, He knows. 

It is sometimes also the pillow of rest 
and peace on which the head of childhood 
lays itself down to sleep away from earth to 
heaven. Sometimes it enables the depart- 
ing child to say words of comfort to the weep- 
ing mother it leaves behind. There was a 
dear little girl who said to her mother when 
dying: “Weep not for me, dear mother; kiss 
me good-night, and hear my little bed-time 
prayer; I will say my morning prayer over 
there, mother, just over there in heaven.” 
Then, saying, “ Now I lay me down to sleep,” 
she fell asleep in her mother’s arms, and 
woke to find herself “ over there ” in the 
arms of her Saviour. This touching circum- 
stance has been embalmed in the following 
lines, written by Hattie A. Fox: 

“Now I lay me down to sleep ” — 

And the blue eyes dark and deep 
Let their snowy curtains down, 

Edged with fringes golden-brown. 


POEMS ABOUT THE CHILD’S PRAYER 1 23 

“ All day long the angels fair 
I’ve been watching over there ; 

Heaven’s not far; ’tis just in sight; 

Now they are calling me; good-night! 
Kiss me, mother ; do not weep ; 

‘Now I lay me down to sleep.’ 

Over there, just over there, 

I shall say my morning prayer. 

Kiss me, mother ; do not weep ; 

* Now I lay me down to sleep.’ ” 

Tangled ringlets, all smooth now, 

Looped back from the waxen brow ; 

Little hands so dimpled, white, 

Clasped together cold to-night. 

Where the grassy, daisied sod 
Brought sweet messages from God, 

Her pale lips with kisses press’d, 

There we left her to her rest ; 

And the dews of evening weep 
Where we laid her down to sleep. 

Over there, just over there, 

List the angels’ morning prayer — 

’Tis not prayer, but songs of praise, 

There she sings the heavenly lays. 

Let no mother ever forget to send her 
child from prayer at her knee to its nightly 


124 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


rest. Her remembrance of that hallowed 
hour may be her greatest comfort when the 
Good Shepherd calls her darling lamb from 
the fold of the home to his fold in heaven. 
The mother can better give up the child 
when she knows that she has trained it on 
earth for heaven, and that it passes with 
prayer into the happy land where this world’s 
petitions are turned into endless praises ; 
that her child has gone to sing the song in 
which the angels lead. This is the thought 
that runs through the following lines, which 
will commend themselves to every Christian 
mother’s heart: 

Safe to the fold the shepherd leads 
His little lambs at close of day, 

And thus my darlings come to me, 

At last grown weary of their play ; 

And while the twilight shadows fall 
O’er hill and meadow from above, 

I draw my little lambkins safe 

Within the fold of home and love. 

All day the restless feet have chased 

The wandering sunbeams here and there ; 

All day the merry breeze has kissed 

My darlings’ cheeks, and brow and hair ; 


POEMS ABOUT THE CHILD’S PRAYER 125 


All day my listening ear has caught 
The happy sound of childish glee, 
Until, at last, the sunset hour 

Has brought the children to my knee. 


Oh, drowsy eyes of blue and brown! 

Oh, nodding heads ! I understand ; 
’Tis time two little travelers start, 

With mother’s aid, for “ slumber-land.” 
So fold the dresses snug away, 

And free the restless, dainty feet 
From shoe and stocking. Thus, at last, 
My little lambs, refreshed and sweet, 

And robed in white, before me kneel 
With folded hands. O Father, thou 
Who art the Shepherd of thy flock, 

Bow down thine ear and listen now 
To each low, childish prayer that these, 
My children, offer up to thee. 

Hallow the twilight hour, O Lord, 

That brings them thus before my knee. 


And so through all the silent hours 
Which lie between the night and day, 
They shall not fear, since from the fold 
Thy love will drive all foes away. 


126 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


Sleep, little ones, oh, sweetly sleep, 

Till morning sunbeams gather fast ; 

And safe from “ slumber-land ” you come 
Back to your mother’s knee at last. 

Such a mother as that pictured in the fore- 
going lines can never be forgotten; and the 
memory of her pious care will be a perpetual 
safeguard and benediction on the lives of her 
children. They can never forget the prayer 
they learned, kneeling at her knee and re- 
peating the words after her. The man whose 
infancy was blessed with that greatest of 
earthly blessings, a pious and praying mother, 
may become so immersed in the pleasures or 
cares of life that, for a while, he may seem 
to forget; but, by and by, some scene wit- 
nessed or word heard will bring back to his 
mind the vision of his mother’s face, and he 
will hear again in his heart the tone of her 
voice in prayer; and the sweet memory will 
be as a strengthening cordial and a soothing 
balm to his soul in hours of trouble and sad- 
ness. This thought is beautifully and touch- 
ingly brought out in the following lines, writ- 
ten by Eugene Field. 


POEMS ABOUT THE CHILD’S PRAYER 12 7 


NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP. 

The fire upon the hearth is low, 

And there is stillness everywhere ; 

Like troubled spirits, here and there 
The firelight shadows fluttering go. 

And as the shadows round me creep, 

A childish trouble breaks the gloom, 
And softly from a farther room 
Comes : “ Now I lay me down to sleep.” 

And, somehow, with that little prayer 
And that sweet treble in my ears, 

My thought goes back to distant years 
And lingers with a dear one there ; 

And, as I hear the child’s amen, 

My mother’s faith comes back to me, 
Couched at her side I seem to be, 

And mother holds my hands again. 

Oh, for an hour in that dear place ! 

Oh, for the peace of that dear time! 
Oh, for that childish trust sublime ! 

Oh, for a glimpse of mother’s face! 

Yet, as the shadows round me creep, 

I do not seem to be alone — 

Sweet magic of that treble tone — 

And “ now I lay me down to sleep.” 


128 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


The verses with which we close this chap- 
ter will not fail to touch the heart of every 
reader. They were found under the head of 
a dead soldier in a prison hospital, and were, 
no doubt, composed by him when thinking 
of his far-off, perhaps sainted mother, and of 
the little prayer which he had learned in in- 
fancy at her knee. 

I lay me down to sleep 
With little thought or care 

Whether my waking find 
Me here or there. 

My half-day’s work is done, 

And this is all my part ; 

I give a patient God 
My patient heart. 

My trust is not in self ; 

I hope in Christ who died, 

And give myself to him, 

The crucified. 

I leave my all to him, 

And lay me down to sleep ; 

My soldier-heart is strong, 

My hand is weak. 


POEMS ABOUT THE CHILD’S PRAYER 1 29 

If I wake to live, 

I’ll live to do my best; 

But if I die to-night, 

With him I’ll rest. 


VIII. 


NURSERY PRAYERS AND CRADLE 
SONGS. 

A MOTHER’S prayers for her children are 
as mountains round about them, walling 
them in to her faith. The cradle songs she 
teaches them are as fountains of spiritual life 
gushing out of the mountains of her prayers, 
and flowing into their souls. The nursery 
prayers are the child’s first lessons in theology. 
The God to whom the child prays is the God 
whom the man will fear and worship. The 
nursery is the child’s first church; and of 
that church the mother is the visible and ac- 
knowledged head. Her children believe in 
her infallibility more certainly than Roman- 
ists believe in the infallibility of the pope. 
She always comes before the preacher, and 
opens the door for him, or closes it against 
him. In all this is involved a tremendous 
responsibility. How heavily it should weigh 
13° 


NURSERY PRAYERS AND CRADLE SONGS 1 3 1 

upon her mind and conscience! Whatever 
the mother soweth in the nursery, that shall 
the children reap in after life ; and they will 
also scatter the seed of it in society. 

On the morning of the resurrection Jesus 
appeared first to some women ; and they 
were the first to preach the gospel of a risen 
Saviour to the disciples and to the world. 
Since then women have always been the first 
to preach the gospel to each new-born gener- 
ation. The child’s evening prayer is usually 
the first seed of religion that is planted in the 
heart. From that seed there springs up and 
grows a life of practical piety as the child’s 
mind develops. The little prayer grows by 
taking on new ideas in additional lines ; and 
then other prayers are learned and used in 
connection with it; thus the child is led on 
step by step, until it learns to pray in its own 
language, pouring out the spontaneous desires 
and aspirations of its own heart in petition 
and praise. 

We commend to mothers the well-known 
prayer composed by the poet Coleridge, as 
suitable for children as soon as they can 
memorize the words and take in their mean- 


32 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


ing. It embraces the entire family, and all 
intimate friends. We should begin early to 
teach our children to pray for others as well 
as for themselves, and also for divine help in 
the discharge of all home duties. 

Ere on my bed my limbs I lay, 

God grant me grace my prayers to say : 

0 God, preserve my mother dear 
In strength and health for many a year ; 

And oh, preserve my father too, 

And may I pay him reverence due ; 

And may I my best thoughts employ 
To be my parents’ hope and joy; 

And oh, preserve us children all 
From sinful ways, both great and small ; 

And may we always love each other, 

Out friends, our father, and our mother ; 

And still, O Lord, to me impart 
An innocent and grateful heart, 

That after my last sleep I may 
Awake to thy eternal day. 

As the child grows older it should be 
taught not only to pray for the various mem- 
bers of the family, and to know the several 
duties that grow out of these varied relation- 


NURSERY PRAYERS AND CRADLE SONGS 1 33 

ships, and pray for grace to discharge them, 
but also it should be taught something of the 
deeper mystery of its own relation to God, 
and to seek in prayer a closer and more 
conscious communion with him. To help in 
this direction we give here another evening 
prayer, which is as well worthy of study by 
grown people as by the children : 

The day is ended. Ere I sink to sleep 
My weary spirit seeks repose in thine ; 

Father, forgive my trespasses, and keep 
This little life of mine. 

With loving kindness curtain thou my bed, 

And cool in rest my, burning pilgrim feet ; 

Thy pardon be the pillow for my head ; 

So shall my sleep be sweet. 

At peace with all the world, dear Lord, and thee ; 

No fears my soul’s unwavering faith can shake ; 
All’s well, whichever side the grave for me 
The morning light shall break. 

Both the fullness and the simplicity of the 
faith of children will lead them to expect lit- 
eral and immediate answers to their prayers, 


134 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


and if they do not receive them just at the 
time and in the way anticipated, they will 
begin to be troubled at the mystery of prayer, 
and, possibly, to doubt its efficacy. There 
is, just here, a point which requires the most 
delicate handling, involving a danger against 
which every cautious mother must carefully 
guard the tender and sensitive mind of her 
child. It is just here that the artful tempter 
sometimes injects the seeds of doubt into the 
child’s mind, which in after years may be 
developed into a troublesome if not destruct- 
ive skepticism; just as the moth-fly deposits 
its egg in the flower, which afterward be- 
comes the worm that destroys the fruit. We 
must teach our children to pray in faith; not 
in the faith that their desires will always be 
granted just at the time and in the way they 
wish, but in the faith that leaves the answer 
to God, resting in the assurance that he will 
always do, in his own good time and way, 
whatever is for their own truest good and 
highest salvation. The following verses, true 
to life, and so simple that a child can under- 
stand them, may help mothers in this difficult 
and delicate task: 


NURSERY PRAYERS AND CRADLE SONGS 13 


“ Mamma, I’ve often heard you say 
That God is listening when we pray, 

And if I do indeed believe, 

That what I ask I shall receive. 

“ Why will he not then take away 
My naughty, sinful heart to-day, 

And make me humble, meek, and mild, 

A quiet and obedient child? 

“ I ask him every day and night 
For a new heart that’s clean and white ; 
You know I have not got it yet — 

He hears my prayers, can he forget? ” 

“ No, darling, God does not forget, 
Although he has not answered yet ; 

And if you listen I will try 
And give you now a reason why. 

“ I once pulled up a garden weed, 

And in its place I dropped a seed ; 

Because they told me God’s great power 
Could change that seed into a flower. 

“ I was a little child, you know, 

And thought the seed would quickly grow ; 
But days and weeks passed slowly round, 
And still it lay deep in the ground. 


136 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


“ At length there came some gentle rain ; 
And when the sun shone forth again 
I hastened to the spot, alone, 

Wherein my little seed was sown. 

“ And there I saw the softened ground 
Raised in a gently-heaving mound, 

And in the middle there was seen 
Two little leaves of brightest green. 

“ And day by day, and hour by hour, 

I watched until there came a flower, 

And thought how good that God must be 
That gave such pretty flowers to me. 

“ And now, my dear, your little prayer 
Is like the seed I dropped in there ; 

God gives it in your hand to sow, 

And promises the seed shall grow. 

“ And if you wait, and watch and pray, 
The seed will spring up day by day ; 

And God will bless it, like my flower, 

Both with the sunshine and the shower. 

“ Until at length, one morning bright, 
You’ll find a heart both clean and white ; 
And evermore your song will be, 

* How very good God is to me.’ ” 


NURSERY PRAYERS AND CRADLE SONGS 1 37 

We add to this a translation from the Ger- 
man of what is called a child’s prayer, but 
which, in reality, is not a prayer at all, but 
a pretty little story about how a herd-boy 
prayed. It teaches both children and grown 
people the nature of all real prayer. We are 
to tell God all we know, pouring out our de- 
sires into his ear, and leave him to choose for 
us, sifting and winnowing our words, what 
he knows will be for our highest good. This 
is the story in rhyme : 

By Alpine lake, ’neath shady rock, 

The herd-boy knelt beside his flock, 

And softly said, with pious air, 

His alphabet as evening prayer. 


Unseen, his pastor lingered near: 

“ My child, what means the sound I hear? 
May I not thy worship share, 

And raise to heaven my evening prayer? ” 


Here where the hills and valleys blend, 
The sound of prayer and praise ascend — 
“ But child, a prayer yours cannot be : 
You have only said your A B C.” 


138 AT MOTHER’S KNEE 

“ I have no better way to pray ; 

All that I know to God I say ; 

I tell the letters on my knees, 

He makes the words himself to please.” 

With the children’s prayers there should 
be mingled the song of praise. The songs of 
infancy, sung in the nursery and at the fam- 
ily altar, can never be forgotten. They are 
like the words of one’s native language. In 
after years one may learn a new one, and the 
native language may be so long unused that 
the tongue may lose its skill in uttering it, 
but the sound of it can never cease to be 
familiar to the ear. It frequently happens 
that persons who emigrated in infancy from 
their native land, and have used a foreign 
language for scores of years, and who sup- 
pose that they have forgotten their mother- 
tongue, begin again in old age to speak the 
language and words of infancy. 

The words that mother first teaches can 
never be forgotten, nor even the sounds that 
were taught in childhood’s oft-repeated songs. 
By the recognition of the unforgetable strains, 
many children who were stolen by Indians 


NURSERY PRAYERS AND CRADLE SONGS 1 39 


in the early settlement of our country have 
been identified by their parents after years 
of absence, and after they had forgotten every 
word of their mother-tongue ; so deep and 
lasting are the impressions that the songs of 
infancy make upon the soul. They go with 
one from the cradle to the grave ; and who 
knows but that they may be resung in the 
better land beyond ? 

For this reason mothers cannot be too 
careful as to what songs they sing, or permit 
to be sung, in the nursery. Some mothers 
seem to think that it can make no difference 
as to the sense or the nonsense of the songs 
they thus sing. It is true that the babe does 
not comprehend their meaning ; but they are 
the breezes in the atmosphere in which the 
young life begins to develop, and the infec- 
tious breath of a vile cradle song may taint 
the child’s life in its very budding. The 
child may remember the tune, and, hearing 
it in after years, may, through the tune, learn 
the words which its mother used to sing. 

The inward character of the mother comes 
out in her cradle songs; and that character 
is never fully developed until she has her 


140 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


own babe in her arms to sing to. A certain 
hitherto indefinable sense of incompleteness 
is only lost in maternity, in which every true 
woman feels that she receives the God-given 
crown of her womanhood. What Mrs. J. P. 
Morgan has beautifully expressed is no doubt 
the true experience of all true and womanly 
women : 

I gave my maiden love, tender and shy ; 

And yet I was sad. Why? Oh, why? 

I gave my wife-love, pure and true ; 

And yet — and yet I was longing too! 

God gave me mother-love, warm and strong ; 

And my sadness was lost in my lullaby song. 


AN OLD CRADLE SONG. 

Sleep, baby, sleep. 

Thy father’s watching the sheep ; 

Thy mother is shaking the dreamland tree, 
And down fall its golden leaves on thee. 
Sleep, baby, sleep. 

Sleep, baby, sleep. 

The large stars are the sheep, 


NURSERY PRAYERS AND CRADLE SONGS 141 

The little stars are the lambs, I guess ; 

The pale moon is the shepherdess. 

Sleep, baby, sleep. 

Sleep, baby, sleep. 

The Saviour loves his sheep ; 

He is the Lamb of God on high, 

Who for our sakes came down to die. 

Sleep, baby, sleep. 

AN EVENING LULLABY. 

€ 

The light is fading out, 

Baby dear, baby dear; 

My arms are round thee close, 

Do not fear, do not fear. 

Within our pretty room 

Shadows creep, shadows creep ; 

Love watches over thee ; 

Go to sleep, go to sleep. 

When darkness covers us, 

Love makes light, love makes light ; 

God’s arms are round us close 
In the night, in the night. 

The light will often fade, 

Shadows creep, shadows creep ; 



142 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


Love always watches thee, 
Go to sleep, go to sleep. 


THE MOTHER’S LULLABY. 

Sleep, little babe of mine ; 

Night and the darkness are near, 

But Jesus looks down 
Through the shadows that frown, 

And baby has nothing to fear. 

Shut, little sleepy eyes ; 

Dear little head, be at rest ; 

For Jesus, like you, 

Was a baby once too, 

And slept on his own mother’s breast. 

Sleep, little babe of mine, 

Soft on your pillow so white, 

For Jesus is here 
To watch over you, dear, 

And nothing can harm you to-night. 

O sweet darling of mine, 

What can you know of the bliss, 

The comfort I keep, 

When awake or asleep, 

Because I am certain of this. 


NURSERY PRAYERS AND CRADLE SONGS 


GOD OF THE WEARY. 

The little birds now seek their nest ; 

The baby sleeps on mother’s breast ; 

Thou givest all thy children rest, 

God of the weary. 

The sailor prayeth on the sea ; 

The little ones, at mother’s knee ; 

Now comes the penitent to thee, 

God of the weary. 

The orphan puts away his fears ; 

The troubled, hopes for happier years 

Thou driest all the mourner’s tears, 
God of the weary. 

Thou sendest rest to tired feet, 

To little toilers, slumbers sweet, 

To aching hearts, repose complete, 
God of the weary. 

In grief, perplexity, or pain, 

None ever come to thee in vain ; 

Thou makest life a joy again, 

God of the weary. 

We sleep that we may wake renewed 

To serve thee, as thy children should, 

With love and zeal and gratitude, 

God of the weary. 


144 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


But it may be that your mother never 
sung any of these beautiful little cradle-songs 
to you when you were an infant held in her 
arms, or resting in your cradle, with your 
wide- opened eyes looking wonderingly into 
her love-beaming face. It may be that your 
mother never sang with you the sweet little 
hymns that almost all mothers, a few years 
back, taught their little children to sing, such 
as “I want to be an angel, and with the 
angels stand,” and “ Little drops of water 
and little grains of sand,” and “There is a 
happy land.” It may be that she sang to 
you only the old-fashioned hymns that were 
sung in the church ; but, if so, there were 
two or three of them that were her spe- 
cial favorites, which she sang over and over 
again, and they made an impression on you 
which you can never forget, and which, 
whenever you hear them sung, recall to you 
the sweet tones of your mother’s voice, and 
cause to rise in your memory the image of 
dear mother’s face — sweet to you, however 
age-worn and wrinkled it may have appeared 
to others. The following lines, which re- 
count a scene that was witnessed during the 


NURSERY PRAYERS AND CRADLE SONGS 1 45 

toils and struggles of the late civil war, tell 
their own story ; and hard is his heart, espe- 
cially if he was a soldier in that war, whose 
eyes will not be dimmed with tears while he 
reads : 

Beneath the hot midsummer sun 
The men had marched all day ; 

And now beside a rippling stream 
Upon the grass they lay. 

Tiring of games and idle jests, 

As swept the hours along, 

They called to one who mused apart, 

“ Come, friend, give us a song.” 

“I fear I cannot please,” he said; 

“The only songs I know 

Are those my mother used to sing 
For me long years ago.” 

“ Sing one of those,” a rough voice cried, 

“ There’s none but true men here ; 

To every mother’s son of us 
A mother’s songs are dear.” 

Then sweetly rose the singer’s voice 
Amid unwonted calm, 

“ Am I a soldier of the Cross, 

A follower of the Lamb? 


46 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


“ And shall I fear to own his cause ” — 

The very stream was stilled, 

And hearts that never throbbed with fear 
With tender thoughts were filled. 

Ended the song, the singer said, 

As to his feet he rose, 

“ Thanks to you all, my friends ; good-night ; 
God grant us sweet repose.” 

“ Sing us one more,” the captain begged. 
The soldier bent his head ; 

Then glancing ’round, with smiling lips, 
“You’ll join with me,” he said. 

“ We’ll sing this old familiar air, 

Sweet as the bugle-call, 

‘ All hail the power of Jesus’ name, 

Let angels prostrate fall.’ ” 

Ah! wondrous was the old tune’s spell 
As on the singer sang ; 

Man after man fell into line, 

And loud the voices rang. 

The songs are done, the camp is still, 
Naught but the stream is heard; 

But ah! the depths of every soul 
By those old hymns are stirred. 


NURSERY PRAYERS AND CRADLE SONGS 1 47 


And up from many a bearded lip, 
In whispers soft and low, 

Rises the prayer the mother taught 
The boy long years ago. 


IX. 


GOOD-MORNING ! GOOD-MORNING 
TO ALL! 

Some things there are which do not grow 
old with the flight of time, nor lose their 
power to fascinate by being often seen ; and 
hence, as poor Keats has said, “ A thing of 
beauty is a joy forever.” The rising sun is 
a beauty that never fades, and a joy that 
never cloys. Every new day is as truly a 
fresh creation of light out of darkness as 
when God said in the beginning, “ Let there 
be light, and light was.” As on that first 
morning the angels and the stars sang to- 
gether for joy, so we should greet every 
morning with songs of praise to God, and 
expressions of good-will toward men. There- 
fore let every one, in the thought and spirit 
of Rev. Horatius Bonar’s sweet hymn : 

148 


GOOD-MORNING TO ALL! 


1 49 


Begin the day with God! 

He is thy sun and day ; 

He is the radiance of thy dawn, 

To him address thy lay. 

Sing thy first song to God, 

Not to thy fellow-man ; 

Not to the creatures of his hand, 

But to the Glorious One. 

Take thy first meal with God! 

He is thy heavenly food! 

Feed with him, on him! He with thee 
Will feast, in brotherhood. 

Take thy first walk with God! 

Let him go forth with thee ; 

By stream, or sea, or mountain path, 

Seek still his company. 

Thy first transaction be 
With God himself above ; 

So shall thy business prosper well, 

And all thy days be love. 

We best show our thankfulness to God for 
the morning light, and our joy in it, by salut- 
ing with a hearty good-morning all whom we 
meet in the early hour of the day. Let us 
never forget to say good-morning, and let us 


150 AT MOTHER’S KNEE 

always say it cheerfully and with a smile. 
It will do us good; will make our own hearts, 
and all around us, brighter. There is an 
inspiration in every hearty good-morning, 
cheerily and smilingly spoken, that seems to 
make a bright morning brighter, and a dark 
morning less gloomy. There seems to be a 
magic in the words that really makes the 
morning good, and promises a good day to 
follow. Parents should never fail to say 
good-morning to their children, nor allow 
them to forget to say good-morning to them, 
to one another, to all visitors, teachers, ac- 
quaintances, and friends. If mothers would 
cause their children to memorize and often 
repeat the following lines, written by Mrs. 
M. M. Butts, they would lodge a beautiful 
thought in their minds — a thought which 
would help to render them amiable in man- 
ner, and would largely contribute to the 
cheerfulness and happiness of their later 
years. 

What happens in the morning 
When light comes to the skies? 

All the little children 
Open wide their eyes. 


GOOD-MORNING TO ALL! 


151 


When their eyes are open 
What do the children see? 

Trees and birds and blossoms, 
Bright as bright can be. 

Is there not for the children 
Something more than this? 

Mamma stands beside them 
With a morning kiss. 

Her smile is more than sunshine, 
And her loving words 

Better than the singing 
Of ten thousand birds. 

In their prettiest garments, 

All ready for the day, 

Kneeling, with sweet voices, 

All the children pray, 

That God, who made the blossoms 
And the birds and skies, 

And gave to them dear mother, 
With her smiling eyes, 

Would send a loving angel 

To help them through the day, 

That they may be good children 
In all their work and play. 


152 


% AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


Not only all people, but even the world 
itself, with its teeming, joyful life, seems to 
be waiting and expecting our hearty good- 
morning salutation, and, when heartily given, 
seems to respond to it with a song and a 
smile. What a beautiful picture, natural and 
life-like, is seen in the following lines : 

“ Good-morning, world! ” On the window-seat 
She balanced her two little timid feet ; 

She clung with her dimpled hands, and stood 
Framed in, like a picture of babyhood. 

The clambering vines hung low and green 
Round the sunniest curls that e’er were seen, 

As she stood with beauty and light impearled, 
And bade “ good-morning ” to all the world. 

“ Good-morning, world!” and the great world 
heard ; 

Each rustling tree, and each singing bird ; 

The dancing flowers and the fields of grass 
Nodded and waved at the little lass, 

And the far-off hills and the sky o’erhead 
Listened and beamed as the word was said ; 

And the old sun lifted his head and smiled : 

“ Good-morning, world ! ” “ Good-morning, child ! ” 

But it is not enough for the child to say 
its hearty good-morning to all in and about 


GOOD-MORNING TO ALL! 


153 


the house, to the smiling friends, the waving 
trees, the blooming flowers and singing birds, 
and the glorious sun. Beyond the visible 
sun there is another — the Sun of Righteous- 
ness. It is his hand that unbars the golden 
gate of the eastern sky and lets in the natural 
sun to fill the heavens and flood the earth 
with its joyous beams ; and him we should 
salute, kneeling in the morning light, with 
our soulful good-morning of prayer and 
praise. And as grown people should begin 
the day with God, so the child should be 
taught never to forget God in the good- 
mornings of its hearty salutations at the 
opening of day. And here come in most 
appropriately the charming lines of Mrs. 
Hamlin, written at Constantinople ; and al- 
though almost everybody knows them by 
heart, yet everybody will be glad to have 
them repeated in this connection; and if a 
mother is reading these pages to her little 
child, that child will clap its hands in delight 
as it hears them. 

“ Oh, I am so happy! ” the little girl said, 

As she sprang like a lark from the low trundle-bed. 


54 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


“ ’Tis morning, bright morning! Good-morning, 
papa! 

Oh, give me one kiss for good-morning, mamma! 
Only just look at my pretty canary, 

Chirping his sweet good-morning to Mary! 

The sunshine is peeping straight into my eyes, — 
Good-morning to you, Mr. Sun, for you rise 
Early to wake up my birdie and me, 

And make us as happy as happy can be.” 

" Happy you may be, my dear little girl,” 

And the mother stroked softly a clustering curl, 

“ Happy as happy can be — but think of the One 
Who awakened, this morn, both you and the sun.” 
The little one turned her bright eyes with a nod — 
“ Mamma, may I say good-morning to God ? ” 

“ Yes, little darling one, surely you may — 

As you kneel by your bed every morning to pray.” 

Mary knelt solemnly down, with her eyes 
Looking up earnestly into the skies, 

And two little hands that were folded together 
Softly she laid on the lap of her mother. 

“ Good-morning, dear Father in heaven,” she said ; 
“ I thank thee for watching my snug little bed, 
For taking good care of me all the dark night, 
And waking me up with the beautiful light*. 

Oh, keep me from naughtiness all the long day, 
Blest Jesus, who taught little children to pray.” 


GOOD-MORNING TO ALL! 155 

How beautiful the picture of the little girl 
“ as she sprang like a lark from the low 
trundle-bed ” ! You have, perhaps, seen the 
lark in old England’s green meadows, upris- 
ing from the dewy grass, shaking the glitter- 
ing drops from its fluttering wings, saluting 
the earth with its first matin notes, and then 
soaring away toward heaven, singing as it 
rises through the azure fields, higher and 
higher until lost to human sight; and then 
you have heard its song floating down from 
beyond the sky, and seeming to be the voice 
of an angel chanting its morning praises be- 
fore the invisible throne. So it was with the 
little girl, springing in the early morn from 
the little bed, shaking sleep from her spark- 
ling eyes, saluting father and mother and all 
the household with her first good-morning, 
bowing to the world, then saluting the sun, 
and then rising still higher and pouring out 
her soul in her hearty “ good-morning ” of 
praise to the great God who gave the day 
with all its beauties, and the home with all 
its blessings. 

The value of morning prayer cannot be 
overestimated, and yet many do not appear 


56 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


to realize its importance. Many who never 
fail in evening worship neglect or run hastily 
through their morning devotions. Many 
mothers, because it is not pleasant to rise 
early to meet the early rising of their chil- 
dren, let their nurses dress them and bring 
them in prayerless to breakfast. And often- 
times breakfast is late, and the children are 
made to eat in haste, and to hurry off to 
school, without opportunity to join with their 
parents in the morning worship. 

The. child that is taught to pray only at 
night will most likely come to feel that it 
needs the help of God only for the hours of 
sleep, when it cannot help itself. A little 
Sunday-school boy, being asked why he did 
not pray mornings, answered, “ If God will 
take care of me of nights, I can take care 
of myself through the day.” But the day 
is really the time of danger. It is full of 
temptations and trials. The night at home 
is the time of safety. But for the larger 
children, the night away from home is the 
time of peril. How sad the thought that so 
many boys are out at night and going to 
ruin ! A prayerless morning generally grows 


GOOD-MORNING TO ALL! 


157 


into a godless day, and a day without God 
may end in a night of drunken carousals in 
company with those whose feet go swiftly 
down to death. 

It is unscriptural to neglect morning prayer. 
David, the busiest man in Jerusalem, said, 
“ Early will I seek thee.” Jesus rose up be- 
fore day, and went out into a solitary place 
to pray. Mary and the other women “ came 
to the sepulcher while it was yet dark.” The 
psalmist said, “ When I awake, I am still 
with thee.” Some one has said prayer should 
be the lock to close the night, and the key 
to open the morning. 

Ere the morning’s busy ray 
Call you to your work away, 

Ere the silent evening close 
Your wearied eye in sweet repose, 

To lift your heart and voice in prayer 
Be your first and latest care. 

If we would train our children thoroughly, 
we must begin with them early — early in the 
morning of life, and early in the morning of 
every day of life. A more character-form- 
ing habit than that of early morning prayer 


158 AT MOTHER’S KNEE 

at the bedside, and at the family altar, can- 
not be acquired. It will go with the child 
through the day, and with the man through 
life, holding over them a great and ever-in- 
creasing influence for good. 

Here are some lines by the Rev. J. R. 
Macduff, D.D., which mothers would do 
well to teach their children to repeat every 
morning : 

O God, to thy keeping 
This day I commend me ; 

Both waking and sleeping 
In mercy defend me. 

May mine be the Christ-life, 

Meek, gentle, and lowly ; 

Evading the world’s strife, 

And following him wholly. 

This little book is, as we have said, in- 
tended to assist Christian mothers in the 
religious training of their children, and in 
forming in their lives the habit of daily 
worship ; and it is hoped that it may be of 
special service to those mothers whose hus- 
bands have not erected the family altar in the 
house. Alas! there are thousands of Chris- 


GOOD-MORNING TO ALL! 


159 


tian mothers whose husbands are not pious. 
And there are thousands of husbands that 
are members of the church who neglect to 
lead their families in prayer and praise. In 
all such cases the mother should have an 
altar of worship for herself and little ones in 
the bed-chamber, or in the nursery. In this 
way she may even win her husband ; but, be 
that as it may, her maternal ministry cannot 
fail to bring a blessing to her entire house- 
hold. Next to the Saviour, a pious mother 
is God’s greatest and best gift ; and blessed . 
are the children who have such mothers to 
teach them to begin and end the day in 
prayer and praise to him. 


THE CHILDREN’S MORNING HYMN. 

O Lord, another night is flown, 

And we, a humble band, 

Lift up our voices to thy throne 
To bless thy fostering hand. 

And wilt thou lend a list’ning ear 
To praises such as ours? 

Thou wilt, for thou dost love to hear 
The song that childhood pours. 


6o 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


Through thy dear Son we now address 
Our prayer to thee above ; 

For he did little children bless 
With words and looks of love. 

O Father, guide our wandering feet 
And bless us on our way, 

Until at length with joy we greet 
The dawn of endless day. 


X. 


OUR CHILDREN IN HEAVEN. 

What has been said about the babe and 
the children in the house will awaken sad 
thoughts in many hearts. There are so many 
empty cradles by which sad mothers kneel 
and weep, and so many desolate homes from 
which the children have gone out never to 
return ! 

There is no flock, however watched and tended, 
But one dead lamb is there! 

There is no fireside, howsoe’er defended, 

But has one vacant chair! 

The air is full of farewells for the dying, 

And mournings for the dead ; 

The heart of Rachel, for her children crying, 

Will not be comforted. 

What can be more sad than for a mother 
to go into the deserted nursery which was 
161 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


162 

her boy’s home within the home, and see all 
his peculiar belongings, and know that he 
can never return to use them again ! Through 
her raining tears she says : 

The nursery shows thy pictured wall, 

Thy bat, thy bow, 

Thy cloak and bonnet, club and ball ; 

But where art thou? 

A corner holds thy empty chair — 

Thy playthings scattered round, 

All speak to me of my despair. 

There are homes without children that are 
not sad. They are the old homesteads in 
which the children grew up, and from which 
they have gone out into homes of their own. 
These homes are not lonely, because they are 
being a second time filled up with children. 
The grandchildren are coming in on daily or 
longer visits ; and they make the old hall- 
ways ring again with the shouts and laugh^- 
ter of gleeful and hilarious childhood. Chil- 
dren’s children are a crown to old men, and 
gray-headed grandfathers sport with them, 
and become children again in their old age. 
Grandchildren rejuvenate grandmothers, and 


OUR CHILDREN IN HEAVEN 163 

under the warm sunshine of their smiles 
grandmothers bloom again into maternal 
caresses, like apple-trees in autumn blossoms. 

It is the homes from which the children 
have gone out through the door that opens 
for departure, but never for return, that are 
made sad and left desolate. Those are the 
homes in which life is darkened by the 
shadow of death. The anguish of a young 
mother in her new home, calling vainly for 
her dead babe, her first-born, to come back 
to her empty arms, is a sight to make the 
angels weep. 

Little lost darling, come back to me! 

Lie in my arms as you used to do! 

Here is the place where your head should be : 
Here on the bosom waiting for you! 

Let me but feel again on my breast 
The velvet touch of your tiny hand ; 

Your rose-leaf lips on my own close prest, 

My cheek by your balmy breathings fanned. 

See here ; I shut tight my weary eyes, 

As thousands of times I’ve done in play ; 

When I unclose them in soft surprise, 

Ring out a laugh in your own sweet way. 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


164 

Come to me, come to me, precious one! 

I am so heart-sick, and sad and lorn : 

Naked as nature without the sun, 

Now that the light of my life is gone. 

You sleep in the churchyard all alone, 

No one to watch by your narrow bed; 

The wind o’er your tender body blown, 

And night-dews dripped on your baby head. 

No! In the luminous fields above 
Angels another new star have set : 

They may surround you with ceaseless love, 

Shield you from sorrow and sinning — yet 

Heaven cannot need you so much as I ! 

Legions of cherubs it had before. 

Baby, my baby, why did you die? 

Come to your mother, my own, once more. 

Little lost darling, come back to me! 

Lie in my arms as you used to do ! 

Here is the place where your head should be : 
Here on the bosom waiting for you! 

Christian resignation is a lesson that even 
the best Christians learn only through blind- 
ing tears, through sad days and lonely nights. 
It is a condition into which the heart grows 


OUR CHILDREN IN HEAVEN 1 65 

slowly, as the grass and the flowers, watered 
by the tear-like dews of weeping nights, begin 
to grow upon the little graves of those whom 
we loved better than we love ourselves. 

It is estimated that more than one half of 
the human race die under ten, more than one 
third under five, and more than one quarter 
under two years of age; and, according to 
the present population of the earth, more 
than seventeen hundred infants die every 
hour, more than forty thousand every day, 
and more than five millions every year. It 
is allowed, on the lowest computation, that 
there have been one hundred and forty gen- 
erations since the creation ; and counting 
only one fifth of our present population as 
an average for each of the past generations, 
at least twenty thousand millions of infants 
have died since the world began — “ a multi- 
tude which no man can number.” 

Where are all these countless millions? 
Jesus died for them, and, through his blood, 
they are all in heaven with him. Jesus said, 
“ Suffer little children to come unto me, and 
forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom 
of heaven.” 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


1 66 

We will not here discuss the question of 
infant salvation. We take it for granted. 
As sure as God is our Father in heaven, and 
as sure as justice is the pillar that supports 
his throne, so sure is it that all dying in 
infancy are gathered in the Father’s house 
above. If children, incapable of faith or un- 
belief, are excluded from heaven, it cannot 
be a Father’s house. Not Stephen, but little 
children were the first martyrs for the cause 
of Jesus. The babes of Bethlehem, slain by 
cruel Herod, died for Jesus’ sake. Is it pos- 
sible to believe that they were not saved by 
Jesus, who afterward died for them? It is 
equally impossible to believe that any infant 
of the race can be lost. If Jesus died for 
one, he died for all ; and if one is saved, then 
all must be saved. The capacity of exer- 
cising conscious faith marks the line where 
infancy ceases and personal responsibility 
begins. 

“ Comfort yourself with the hope that your 
child is in heaven,” said one to a heart-broken 
mother weeping over the little white coffin 
which contained the marble form of her dar- 
ling babe. “With the hope! ” said she, in a 


OUR CHILDREN IN HEAVEN 167 

tone in which were mingled surprise, indigna- 
tion, and overwhelming grief. “ It is not 
a hope , it is an assurance. I know that my 
child is with its Saviour in my Father’s house 
in heaven. Hope? Why do you say hope? 
There is torture in the word. It is a slander 
on God, as the God of justice; to say noth- 
ing of his love and mercy. If I should not 
find my child in heaven, I could not stay 
there. God is not a Father, and heaven is 
not a Father’s house, if its pearly gates shut 
out our infants.” The words were not 
spoken in a spirit of rebellion, nor was there 
a touch or tinge of irreverence in them ; they 
were forced out of her grief-smitten heart by 
her holy indignation toward the man who 
could speak of infant salvation as a hope 
instead of an assured certainty. In her mind 
there was no room to doubt that all children 
of Adam’s race, dying in infancy, are saved 
through the atonement of Jesus Christ, who 
is the Saviour of all men, except those who 
reject him. Infants cannot reject him, and 
he will not refuse them. 

“ Are there children in heaven? ” was once 
asked by a mother, as her hot tears fell upon 


i68 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


the cold face of her dead infant lying in her 
arms. “Yes, myriads of them!” was the 
answer. “ I have no doubt about the salva- 
tion of all infants; but shall I find my child 
in heaven, and find it as mine , and find it 
still a child? And will it know me as its 
mother?” Yes, weeping mother! Heaven 
is the grand meeting-place where all kindred 
and friends that know and love one another 
on earth shall ’ meet and know and love 
again, and that for all eternity. 

There the child shall find its mother, 

And the mother find the child ; 

There the families regather 

That were scattered on the wild. 

“We shall go to them,” and when we 
meet, both we and they shall be just what 
we were here on earth, save only that all 
touch and stain of sin shall have been forever 
taken away. There can be no meeting of 
persons without mutual recognition. Bodies 
may touch without recognition, but souls 
cannot so meet. 

“ But,” says the mother, “ shall I find my 
child as a child , or as a grown man? ” The 


OUR CHILDREN IN HEAVEN 169 

child in heaven is not the developed man, 
but the glorified child. The language of 
Scripture on this point is explicit : “ I saw 
the dead small and great ” — infants and 
adults — “ stand before God.” Concerning 
children Jesus said, “Of such is the kingdom 
of heaven.” What would heaven be without 
infants in it? Infancy there, will not be a 
state of feebleness, but perfected infancy — 
glorified childhood. This is the glorious truth 
that helps to reconcile us to the early death 
of our little ones. We shall find them per- 
fected as children in glory — our children in 
heaven. As the boy grows up, how often 
does the mother say, “ Oh, I wish I could 
keep you a child forever!” She shall find 
her lost child a child in heaven ; and it shall 
be a child , and her child, forever. 

Under the title of “ Early Death ” Herder 
gives this beautiful parable : 

“ Early in the morning a damsel went into 
the garden to gather for herself a wreath of 
beautiful roses. She saw before her only 
buds, closed and half-opened, suffused with 
dew, fresh and fragrant. 

“ ‘ Not yet will I pluck you,’ said the darn- 


70 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


sel. ‘ I will wait till the genial sun opens 
your bosoms, then will ye smile in lovelier 
tints, and breathe a sweeter odor.’ 

“ She came again at noon, and behold ! the 
worm had reveled in the open roses, the sun 
had faded them, and they looked languid, 
lifeless, and pale. The maiden wept! The 
next morning she gathered her flowers early. 

“ Those children whom God loves best he 
gathers early out of this life, before sin smites 
them — before its blight touches their hearts. 
The paradise of children is a high stage in the 
heavenly blessedness. The most righteous 
adult cannot attain unto it, because his spirit 
has received deeper stains of sin.” 

I know that Longfellow’s beautiful lines in 
his sweet “ Hymn of Resignation ” will be 
quoted against the view we advance. He 
was comforted in the assurance that he and 
his wife would find again their daughter who 
died in infancy, but says: 

Not as a child shall we again behold her; 

For when, with rapture wild, 

In our embraces we again enfold her, 

She will not be a child, 


OUR CHILDREN IN HEAVEN I 7 1 

But a fair maiden in her Father’s mansion, 
Clothed with celestial grace ; 

And beautiful with all the soul’s expansion, 
Shall we behold her face. 

This is not our conception of the state of 
our children in heaven, nor does it seem to 
have been Longfellow’s permanent concep- 
tion of what little children are in paradise; 
for in his song of “ The Reaper and the 
Flowers ” he says : 

“ My Lord hath need of the flowerets gay,” 
The reaper said, and smiled ; 

“ Dear tokens of the earth are they, 

Where he was once a child. 

“ They shall all bloom in fields of light, 
Transplanted by my care ; 

And saints upon their garments white 
These sacred blossoms wear.” 

In his “Hymn of Resignation” he was 
thinking of his own child, picturing to him- 
self what she would have been if she had 
been spared to grow up in his own home on 
earth — what a thing of beauty she would 


172 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


have been, and how her loveliness would have 
graced his home — and he imagines her as 
such in the Father’s home in heaven. The 
image is beautiful ; but it shows that the poet, 
while singing so sweetly of resignation, was 
not himself perfectly resigned. In his poetic 
flight he carried the image of his earth -home 
into his conception of the heaven-home, and 
spoke rather of what his home on earth had 
lost — a fair maiden that would have graced 
it — than of what heaven had gained- — a lovely 
infant glorified in the beauty of eternal child- 
hood. 

The Rev. Edward H. Bickersteth beauti- 
fully expresses the almost universal hope of 
bereaved parents, and the reasons which sus- 
tain that hope, when he says : 

A babe in glory is a babe forever. 

Perfect as spirits, and able to pour forth 
Their glad hearts in the tongues which angels use, 
These nurselings, gathered in God’s nursery, 
Forever grow in loveliness and love, 

Yet cannot pass the limit which defines 
Their being. They have never fought the fight, 
Nor borne the heat and burden of the day, 

Nor stagger’d underneath the weary cross; 


OUR CHILDREN IN HEAVEN 173 

Conceived in sin, they sinn’d not; though they 
died, 

They never shudder’d with the fear of death ; 
These things they know not, and can never know. 
Yet, fallen children of a fallen race, 

And early to transgression, like the rest, 

Sure victims; they were bought with Jesus’ blood, 
And cleansed by Jesus’ Spirit, and redeemed 
By his Omnipotent arm from death and hell ; 

A link betwixt mankind and angelhood : 

As born of woman, sharers with all saints 
In that great ransom paid upon the cross ; 

In purity and inexperience 
Of guilt, akin to angels. Infancy 
Is one thing, manhood one. And babes, though 
stones 

Of the true archetypal house of God 
Built on the heavenly Zion, are not now, 

Nor will be ever, massive rocks rough-hewn, 

Or ponderous cornerstones, or fluted shafts 
Of columns, or far-shadowing pinnacles ; 

But rather as delicate lily-work 
By Hiram wrought for Solomon of old, 
Enwreathed upon the brazen chapiters, 

Or flowers of lilies round the molten sea. 
Innumerable flowers that bloom and blush 
In heaven. Nor reckon God’s design in them 
Frustrate, or shorn of full accomplishment. 


174 


AT MOTHER’S KNEE 


The lily is as perfect as the oak ; 

The myrtle is as fragrant as the palm ; 

And Sharon’s roses are as beautiful 
As Lebanon’s majestic cedar-crown. 

These lines are true and beautiful, but, by 
reason of the abundant comparisons with 
which they close, they leave a sense of chill 
upon the heart. Are our children in heaven 
nothing more than the beautiful lily-work 
ornaments that adorn the temple? This is 
not what the poet meant. They live, and 
contribute to, and share in, all the pleasures 
of the immortal life of the skies. They are 
in heaven as children, our children, and find- 
ing them shall be a part of our heavenly joy 
— a joy which they shall share. Heaven is 
their home, and shall be ours, and in that 
home parents and children shall meet and 
rejoice together in endless and cloudless 
delight. 

This the same author beautifully teaches 
in the story of heavenly things which the 
guardian angel tells to a child that it is bear- 
ing from its mother’s bosom to its Saviour’s 


arms : 


OUR CHILDREN IN HEAVEN 


175 


There joy without measure, 

There day without night ; 

And rivers of pleasure 
Shall break on thy sight ; 

There are gold paths transparent, 
And gateways of pearl ; 

There the babe and the parent, 
The boy and the girl, 

With angels are walking 
And plucking the fruit, 

And singing or talking 
To sound of the lute. 

No shadow can darken 
Their blessed employ ; 

Hush, baby, and hearken 
To sound of their joy. 

See, the Lord of the garden 
Our coming awaits. 































































































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